


Possibilities of a Life

by andeemae



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Gen, Originally Posted Elsewhere, non-linear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:14:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 59
Words: 125,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29292729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andeemae/pseuds/andeemae
Summary: Interconnected one shots with Madge and Gale. Some are sad, some are sweet, you've been warned.
Relationships: Gale Hawthorne/Madge Undersee
Comments: 2
Kudos: 50





	1. Independence Day

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Madge didn't really remember ever celebrating anything back in Twelve. There was no church, the government had abolished those organizations long before she was born and with them all their holy days. They didn't have government vacations either, unless you counted mandatory viewing days which she felt were the opposite of what a vacation was supposed to be. Days off from work for leisure? What do you need that for?

Even if they had holidays or vacations, what would there have been to celebrate?

Now, though, three years out from the overthrow of the government, there seemed to be plenty to celebrate. Things are calmer, the infighting between the Districts is at an all time low, the government is stable and, for the most part, trustworthy. It's looking up. For the first time in a long time, there's promise in the air.

Madge stands outside the stadium, studying the twisted metal archway that forms the words 'District 10 Stockyards', before heading in. It's a filthy place, she can still smell the cattle and dust even after what she's certain was a thorough cleaning earlier in the day. She mills in with the rest of the crowd to find a seat.

It's chilly, unseasonably so for this part of the country, and she pulls her hat lower on her head.

Katy-Jo Lewes tosses a scarf over her shoulders. "Told you to dress warmer, ninny."

Her bright golden eyes twinkle at Madge, letting her know she's only teasing. Madge wraps the scarf around her neck and up to her chin.

"So this is the infamous Stockyard?" Madge finally manages to ask through chattering teeth.

"Yep," Katy-Jo Lewes tosses her multitude of dark braids over her shoulder. "Where hope came to die."

It's enormous on the inside, and Madge can picture the thousands of children of District 10, ages twelve to eighteen, trapped like livestock down on the floor and awaiting their slaughter.

"Welcome!"

The newest Mayor of District 10, an ebony skinned woman with a brilliant smile and a commanding voice greeted them as they took their seats on the hard metallic bleachers.

"Welcome to the first Independence Day Celebration of the New Republic of Panem!"

There was uproar in the crowd. Yelling and whooping and hollering. Madge found herself infected with the excitement and began jumping up and down with the group. The ancient metal underfoot creaked forebodingly.

"Let's not do that," Katy-Jo Lewes muttered as she grabbed Madge and pulled her back to her seat.

"District Ten, we have sacrificed so much. Our happiness, our freedom, our children! We have sacrificed far too much for far too long! Tonight we celebrate those things and those people we have lost along the way! Tonight and into eternity we will remember those precious children fed to an uncaring regime! We will remember them and honor them…always." She pauses, to great effect. The crowd is on its toes awaiting her next breath. Her smile lights the entire stage she stands on. "We celebrate the future! We celebrate the possibilities!"

"It's so cheesy, I might make a casserole, honest to god." Katy-Jo Lewes is laughing brightly at the display.

There are fireworks going off. Huge puffs of light and noise. They rocket into the air and explode into a thousand points of light. It shouldn't frighten Madge, really it shouldn't. But it does.

With every burst of light, every bang of the drums from the band, every screech and boom she recoils further. It's nothing like the last night in District Twelve, that's what she keeps telling herself.

These people are happy. They aren't running in terror. These aren't bombs. These are fireworks. No one is going to die. It's a celebration. It's a celebration. It's a celebration.

Finally, she can't take it anymore and darts away; down the stairs and to the exit, Katy-Jo Lewes calling after her.

She comes to a stop just outside the tall walls, the wailing of the crowd and the horrible banging of the fireworks and the band are muffled. Doubling over, she tries to catch her breath, but begins sobbing instead.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she hisses at herself.

"Miss?" Someone, a man with a low rumbling voice, says. She nearly jumps out of her skin when she feels a hand on her back.

With a yelp she teeters away, her too big woolen hat slipping further down her face.

"I didn't mean to scare you," he tells her. He's lowered his hands in a gesture she takes to mean he's backing away now, don't freak out.

"No," she shakes her head because her voice is muffled by the scarf. "I just-was having a bit of a meltdown."

"Did-did the fireworks scare you?" he asks with a frown. A very familiar frown…

It makes her sound like a child. Pathetic. Being afraid of fireworks. She shakes her head.

"No, no, no…no, it's the band, they were just…so horrible."

This was clearly not on the list of things he was expecting her to say, because he lets out a boom of laughter.

Madge freezes. She knows that laugh. She squints up, trying to keep her own face down, and as if by some sick cosmic joke, she gets a good look at him. Gale Hawthorne. In the flesh and decked out in full military regalia.

He's more careworn looking, though the past few years have no doubt added to his already hard life. He's still handsome though. Damn that. She'd forgotten that there were to be military bigshots at the ceremony.

"Okay then," he finishes laughing. He smiles dazzlingly down at her. "It's okay to be afraid, you know. Of the fireworks…or a terrible band."

Madge nods.

"I'm from Twelve, originally, and, uh, my sister still gets nightmares sometimes. About the bombings." He rubs the back of his neck. "She and my family were at the ceremony in Two and it sent her into fits. So…I understand…if they do."

Poor little Posy. Madge feels a pang in her heart thinking about the little girl having the same anxiety she was experiencing.

"I'm sorry, about that." And she is. Truly and deeply.

Her hat and scarf are suddenly too warm, suffocating, and she knows she needs to get away. Madge turns quickly. "I have to get back. My friend will be worried. I kind of tore off on her."

She's only a few steps off when he calls to her, "Hey, wait."

She pulls her coat closer to her body and snuggles her face lower in her scarf, waiting for him to speak again.

"Do I know you?"

Madge bites her lip. She's been so lonely since coming to Ten. Even with her friends, their shared history was only a fraction of her life, the most traumatic fraction, but a fraction nonetheless.

Glancing up, she saw a brilliant silver willow flare then dissolve.

Madge Undersee is dead. She died in the firebombings that killed her parents and gave Posy Hawthorne nightmares. Letting her ghost talk to someone she used to know won't resurrect her.

She glances over her shoulder, just barely catching his grey eyes.

"No," she answers simply. "You don't."


	2. Never was a story of more woe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

"It isn't fair!"

Gale is pacing back and forth in her garden, trampling a couple of her last cabbages.

He'd shown up, out of the blue, in the middle of the night, absolutely reeking of alcohol and raving. He'd spent months practically ignoring her and now he wanted her as his personal therapist. A small, rather vindictive part of her had half wanted to let him make such a racket that the night watchmen would catch him and take him to the tank to dry out. Then she remembered Thread, the whipping post, Vick, Posy, and Rory, and of course Gale's already poor standing in the community and she couldn't.

"She's s-s'ppos'd t'have a happily ever-ever after." He runs his hand over his face. "She's the s-s-star-cross'd l'ver!"

"Lovers," she holds up two fingers helpfully. "There are two of them. A pair. A couple."

"Shut up, Unders'see," he mutters. "I don't care about Mell'rk."

He trips over his own feet, tumbling into a tomato cage before landing on the carrots. She sighs and takes a seat next to him, pulling her knees to her chest and resting her cheek against them.

"She shouldn't have to go back. They changed the rules once." His voice quivers and he looks to her, "Why can't they do it again?"

Madge forces a small, sad smile. "Because the 'Star-crossed lovers' is a tragedy, Gale. It's meant to come to a bad end."

"It's a love story," her murmurs.

She snorts, "Not even close. Don't you remember freshmen literature?"

Gale glares, "I had bett'r things t'do freshmen year than read some s-stupid play."

Her face flushes and she feels a little cruel. Of course Gale had had better things to do than read a story by some long dead playwright. He didn't have the luxury of a comfortable home and full stomach that she did.

"Romeo and Juliet die. They kill themselves. And they got a lot of people killed along the way to their end." Now she thinks about it, it's actually a pretty fair comparison for Katniss and Peeta, considering how their Game nearly ended…

"Peeta will protect Katniss, Gale. He's going to get her home again. You'll see." She inspects the now ruined cabbage, "Peeta, he's a good guy. I know you don't want to think about it, or admit it, but he is."

With a grunt, Gale flops back and Madge flinches. Her poor cabbages.

"I know he is." He growls. "Goddamnit, I know he is."

The emptiness that follows is hollow. She wishes she had something more than empty hope to offer him. Something like the morphling she'd taken to him after his whipping. A real, physical balm for his aching soul, but there was nothing. Katniss and Peeta were all but condemned, and there was nothing she or Gale could do.

"Would he die for her?"

She almost doesn't hear him; his voice just barely reaches her over the thick blanket of quiet that had settled over them.

Madge stares up at the sky, the moon peeks out at her from behind a cloud, and she nods, "Yeah, he would. He will."

"He loves her?"

It sounds less like a question and more like a child needing affirmation. Madge nearly laughs, not because it's funny, but because it's so painfully sad.

"Yeah, he does."

Gale sits up, turns slightly green, then flops back down.

"You're drunk," she reminds him.

"Yeah, yeah, I remember." He presses his fingers to his eyes.

You're going to have one hell of a hangover come morning. She thinks as she watches him struggle to sit up, slower this time.

Once he's back in the upright position he fixes her in his fuzzy gaze.

"Could you do it?" He asks. She frowns, unsure what he's talking about now. He seems to realize he's lost her and tries to refocus.

"Could you die for someone you loved? I mean, if you didn't know if they loved you too, or at least not-not like you loved them?"

Madge remembers running through the bitter cold, through blinding white sheets of snow and stinging wind. She remembers praying the new peacekeepers didn't catcher her until she'd made her precious delivery. She remembers a dull ache in the center of her chest, wanting to be brave, wanting to ease his pain.

She shrugs.

"Don't know," she gives him a faint smile. "Let's hope I never have to find out."


	3. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale is obviously out of breath when they top the last of the low slopes. His face is ruddy and there's heavy sweat trickling along his face, down his neck, disappearing into his shirt as he puts his hands to his knees, doubled over.

Madge stops and turns back as she waits for him, a grin wide on her face.

"Don't you have to be shape to be in the military?" She teases.

A scowl flickers across his face. "I amin shape," he grumbles. "No sane person runs ten miles in this-" he waves his hand up and out at the soupy landscape, "crap."

It's humid, muggy, swampy, however you'd want to put it, Madge would admit that. Summer had ambled in lazily and settled over the open grasslands heavily. The air was constantly thick with moisture, walking outside resulted in taking on the appearance of someone dunked in a lake. Most tried to get as much done in the early hours or late in the evenings when the swelter was more tolerable.

This morning, like most, was sticky and disgusting, but there was almost an undercurrent of chill in the air that the locals had warned Madge meant they'd probably get rain later in the afternoon.

Madge snorts, "There's a nip in the air. This is downright pleasant compared to what'll come later."

He doesn't look encouraged by this.

She watches him arch his back and try to stretch out his muscles.

He keeps coming back to District Ten to see her. She doesn't know why. Some kind of morbid curiosity or maybe he just wants some kind of tether to the past that isn't his family, she isn't sure. He doesn't have Katniss anymore. She doesn't know exactly what happened there and she isn't entirely sure she wants to know or if she is entitled to ask.

They aren't exactly friends, she isn't sure they ever really were even back before the Rebellion. He doesn't hate her, though they'd moved past that, for the most part, during the 74th Games. Madge isn't sure what they are to be honest. He's a guy from her home District and she's a girl from his and he visits her when he's in town, giving a title to whatever their relationship is proves to be an impossible task.

"Why do you run?" He asks her once he's a slightly less crimson color.

She shrugs, "Dunno."

That's the honest truth. She loathesit actually. She hates the burn in her muscles and the stitch in her side. She hates how long it takes. She hates the sweat and the stink.

…but she kind of loves it too.

She loves the ache when she takes a new path and the drumming of her heart. She loves the solidarity, just Madge and her thoughts. It's invigorating.

"Masochism?" She finally offers.

He frowns.

"It means I lik-"

"I know what it means, Undersee," he tells her. She doesn't really think he does, but decides not to press it.

She bounces from foot to foot, then crouches down slightly and throws a little mock punch at him. It makes a small popping noise as her fist collides with his arm.

"Come on, Hawthorne, not gonna let a lil girl out run you are you?"

She turns and takes off, jogging down the incline. She's several yards off when she realizes he isn't trailing behind her.

"I can't carry you," she yells back at him.

Gale is standing on the high ground, arms crossed and a funny look on his face.

Madge huffs and runs back up to him.

"Where'd you learn to box?"

It isn't a question she expected and she freezes up.

"What makes you think I can box?"

He narrows his grey eyes at her, "I've been on the receiving end of one of your punches, remember?"

She lets out a nervous little chuckle. She did indeed remember punching him. He'd caught her trying to escape, trying to keep him from seeing her, and a deep, basic survival instinct had kicked in. It had been a rather lovely right straight that had collided with his nose, not breaking it, but bruising and bloodying it magnificently.

"Lucky shot?" She offers not expecting him to believe her.

He doesn't.

"Just now, you had the proper stance. I recognize it from training. They taught us the basics. Who taught you to box, Undersee?"

"Television?"

His eyes roll heavenward.

Really, it's not a secret. But she feels it's personal. A little nugget of herself that she isn't sure she wants to share with anyone.

She had punched him though, and she had taunted him into running with her…

He's watching her, waiting, and for a moment she considers running off. He hasn't earned the right to know the little highlights of her life. Her memories are all she has left of her old life.

Finally, she balls her right hand into a fist and examines her knuckles.

"My dad."

Confusion flickers across his face. "Mayor Undersee? Why?"

She plants her feet and raises her fists, assuming the proper stance she'd learned a lifetime ago.

"When I was about eight some boys caught me after school. Knocked me around pretty good. Cut my knee, tore my dress, made me cry…" She drops her fists, "Deserved it, didn't I? Mayor's kid? Not like I had any feelings to hurt."

Tears well in her eyes and she blinks them back.

She'd gone home looking a mess. Her mother had gone into hysterics ("My baby, my baby, my baby…") and upset Madge even more before her father was able to get home and settle them both down. After he'd bandaged her knees and cleaned her up he'd taken her to the basement and begun teaching her the very basics of boxing.

"Life won't be kind, Magdalene. You have to learn to take care of yourself. Fighting isn't always the answer, but if worse comes to worse, you'll have to defend yourself," he'd told her when she asked why the boys had been so mean and why she needed to learn to bob and weave.

Now it seemed, her life was mostly bobbing and weaving, ducking and dodging. He'd done a good job then.

"You didn't deserve it, Madge. You were a little kid. They shouldn't have hurt you. They were assholes." He makes a face, "Guess I was an asshole to you too, huh?"

She brushes it off, "Gale-"

"No. I was. Why you ever bothered being decent to me I'll never know."

Madge wants to laugh, tell him 'sticks and stone may break my bones, but words will never hurt me'. Honestly, though, the words, the glares, all the ill will slung at her for something she had not one iota of control over had done far more damage than that group of bratty boys could have ever hoped.

"Why didn't you teach Katniss and Peeta how to box? Before the Quarter Quell?"

It's a good question. She should have seen it coming. Her mind is already forming all the ways he's going to be furious at her for this, for withholding something that could have potentially helped Katniss during the Games.

"Sometimes, in fighting, you need to know when to throw a punch and when to watch for them to make a move. Wait for an opening." She runs her hand over her sweaty hair, "I didn't think either one of them was ready to learn that. I didn't want to be the one to teach them the skill that got them killed. They needed to focus on building on what they were already good at, not try to hobble together a new ability. So I gave them something I thought was infinitely more valuable, support and what little information I had."

Gale doesn't look entirely happy with the answer, and truthfully she isn't either, but it had been her justification at seventeen and so she offered it.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, he sighs.

"Alright," he nods. He takes deep breath and looks around; maybe he's planning on leaving her.

He chews on his lower lip, "I-I don't understand, not really. It made sense to you though…and, I guess, in the end, it didn't matter. It's irrelevant."

Madge can only stare, waiting for him to change his mind.

"You're-you're letting it go?" She can't keep the edge of suspicion out of her voice.

Gale nods slowly, "Yeah, guess I am."

Madge wrinkles her nose, "Really?"

"Really."

Tiny smiles creep onto both their faces. They stand there, in the early morning light on the knoll in the middle of the prairie, and take in the much more pleasant warmth of what they both felt had finally happened.

Their relationship, by whatever name they decided on, wasn't as brittle a thing as Madge had imagined. It didn't shatter with the revelation that she hadn't been as helpful as Gale felt she could have been, that she had place emotional support above tactical maneuvers.

Maybe they're friends after all.


	4. All thing wicked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

"I killed her," he tells her as he stares blankly out at the ocean. "It was my bomb."

"You don't know that," she tells him as she crosses her legs and balances on the seawall. The lights from the restaurants burn dimly behind them, casting dull shadow out and to the sand below.

She'd agreed, after much persuasion, to go with Gale to the Western most tip of District Four. Madge had never seen the ocean and she didn't know when the opportunity would arise again.

They'd been more open with one another over the last few months. Slowly, almost painfully, they'd gotten to know each other again. Neither one of them were the people they were back in Twelve. Too much had happened for them to be.

It wasn't a fresh start exactly, but it was as close as they could come. They knew one another's ugly past, and somehow it made things a little bit easier.

Gale had been holding back something though. She hadn't pressed him. At first she thought maybe she wasn't entitled to know, then later, as their tentative friendship blossomed somehow she knew when he was ready he would tell her.

She really hadn't expected it over dinner.

Gale had been a little too quiet after the meeting with the committee. He'd munched on his fried octopus and listened to Madge talk about the strange clothing the locals kept trying to push on her at the market without comment. Finally she's flicked a shrimp at him, hitting him squarely between the eyes.

"Everything alright?"

The ever increasing lines in his face deepened.

"Ran into Annie Cresta after the meeting."

Madge had never met the former Victor, though she'd heard plenty.

"She had the kid. She and Finnick's kid," he ran his hands through his hair. "He's huge now."

"Well he's got to be," Madge mentally adds up the years. "Two? Nearly three?"

He nods somberly. It dawns on Madge what she's said.

Annie Cresta and Finnick Odair's little boy is nearly three years old and he's never met his father. It's been three years since he died. Three years since Annie was widowed.

"He has so much ahead of him," he say, more to himself than to her.

"That's what you fought for, what Finnick Odair fought for, so that kids like him could have real futures."

His eyes flicker and Madge realizes too late she's said something wrong.

"I fought because I was angry. I fought because they took and took but never gave back. I didn't just want to take them down, Madge, I wanted to make them suffer." He reaches across the table and takes her hand and squeezes it, "Annie, she loved Finnick so damn much and he had to do so many terrible things. He didn't have a choice about any of it. I had a choice, and I-I did so many bad things. I can't even tell you all the bad things I've done."

Then he tells her about the bomb. The trick with the parachutes. The kids. Primrose Everdeen. He doesn't ever say that it's all his fault, but the hollow tone of his voice, that empty look in his eyes, the way he seems to shrink in on himself speak louder than his words ever could.

They'd walked; Madge almost thought he was trying to outpace whatever ghosts were chasing them, the way he almost left her behind as he took long, fast strides out into the night.

His confession had culminated at the seawall.

"You don't know-"

"It was my design. Beetee and I-we-it," he picks up a sea battered rock and flings it out into the dark water. "That's why Katniss hates me."

"You would never hurt Prim, you would never hurt any child," she tries to reason with him.

He laughs, it's a cold, vicious thing that doesn't suit him.

"But I planned it. I didn't see people, I just saw the enemy. Even if I didn't order them to be used, they existed because of me. I'm always going to have to live with that."

Madge stands and walks over to him. She can see the dim reflection of tears in his eyes. They haven't hugged since the day they reunited, neither one of them is terribly demonstrative and their friendship is still so young, but Madge knows this is what he needs. Before she can think on it too hard, Madge flings her arms around Gale's narrow waist, pressing her ear to his chest.

"Maybe it was your bomb. Maybe you didn't care about hurting the people in the Capitol because they were just below pond scum in your eyes. Maybe you were wrong to design them in the first place," she looks up at him, chin in his sternum. "But you know it was wrong now. You stumbled, you fell and you fell hard, but you're still here, you can still get up. You have to choose to get up, though. Make amends. It's not over yet."

His arms wrap around her shoulders as he crushes her to him and buries his face in her hair.

"It'll take a lifetime," he whispers into her hair. She can feel his warm breath across her scalp. Her ear presses to his chest again and she can hear the steady beat of his heart and feel the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest as she stares out at the dark sea.

"Then we'll take a lifetime."


	5. Born to the purple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

They've really made a mess and Madge isn't certain it's worth it.

Madge had only suggested making ice cream as a joke. She didn't expect the kids to take her up on the offer. But Posy and Vick's eyes had bulged out of their faces and even Rory had a flicker of interest at the mention.

So she'd taken them back to her house and dug out the ice maker from under the cabinet and gathered the supplies.

Now Rory and Vick were hacking at a rather large hunk of ice with a pick, putting the shavings in a little metal bucket, and Posy was mashing some soggy blueberries with great gusto while Madge mixed the cream, sugar, and eggs.

The blueberry juice is all over the back porch, in puddles around Posy. It's also in her hair, on her lips, smeared across her cheeks like a purple blush, in splatters on her dirty tan colored shirt, and somehow she'd even managed to fling the brilliant hue on her brothers. Madge knows she's made quite a job for their poor mother.

"Okay, Posy, are the berries ready?"

Posy nods, her pig tails sway with the motion, then stands and trots the bowl over to Madge, sloshing a bit more down her front. It's a thick soup of violet, some of the skins are still visible. She holds it out importantly to Madge.

"Here, dump it in."

She carefully helps Posy tip the bowl over, emptying the contents into the metal canister, before adding the milk.

"Okay, boys, now for the really important part." She begin explaining to them how they need to alternate ice and salt in the empty space around the canister and turn the handle, spinning the churn inside and mixing the contents.

They listen, almost comically serious looks on their faces, nodding before beginning their task.

Madge supervises. She hates digging in the ice and she's reasonably certain there isn't anything they can do to ruin their treat until the freezing finishes.

They've been so absorbed in their task that they don't notice the sun sinking lower in the sky. It isn't until someone whistles, a short burst, that they even look off the porch.

Gale and one of his miner friends, she remembers him as Thom, are at the back gate watching them, bemused looks on their faces.

"What's going on here?" Gale yells up to them.

Posy waves her sticky, purple hand at him, "Hi, Gale! We're making ice cream!"

He and his friend jump the fence and saunter up to them. He's covered in coal dust, coating his olive complexion and dark hair with a deathly pallor, his eyes are as alive as ever, though, as her surveys the mess that is the Undersees' back porch.

His friend, Thom, gives Vick a tap on the back with his helmet.

"Building you some muscles there, huh kid?"

Vick grins and continues cranking the handle.

"We need to get home soon. Mom sent me to pick you all up." Gale tells them, eyeing the multitude of smears and splatters covering his sister.

"We're making ice cream, Gale, we can't just stop," Rory tells him.

"Madge needs our help," Vick adds importantly. He shoots Gale a very sour look, plainly telling him to leave if he's going to spoil their fun.

Thom snickers behind him.

Posy sticks her filthy hands on her hips and glares up at her brother and Madge knows he's done for.

It takes nearly an hour for the ice cream to fully freeze. It would have been done quicker, but Rory and Vick kept getting in arguments over just exactly whose turn it was to work the crank and how much salt needed to be on the ice.

Madge scoops out the light purple mixture into bowls for each of the kids, Thom, Gale, then finally herself.

Gale is almost hesitant to eat it. She expects him to make some kind of snide comment about how it must be nice to have the luxury of such a sweet, but then his eyes flicker to his sibling, noisily and messily eating the dessert and he remains quiet.

Thom is teasing Vick, Madge catches what sounds like her name, then the little boy has flung a spoonful of ice cream at the man, narrowly missing him and splattering the wood at Thom's feet with purple. Rory is laughing and Vick is pink in the face.

"Thanks," Gale suddenly says as he takes the seat next to her on the bench swing.

She arches an eyebrow, "For what?"

He gestures with his bowl, "Taking their minds off crap."

The last few months have been hard on them, she knows that. First Gale's whipping, their mother having trouble getting work in the aftermath, the Quarter Quell announcement, all the training Gale had been helping Katniss (and, much to his annoyance, Peeta and Mr. Abernathy) do…

It's been a rough year, and with Katniss and Peeta gone to the Capitol to what will likely be their death, it's not promising to get any better anytime soon.

"It was nothing. Besides," she lets out a dramatic sigh, "can't be getting my hands dirty doing such menial tasks, right?"

He snorts, "Don't think you quite reached your goal there, Princess."

One of his huge fingers comes up and pokes her in the cheek. With a frown, she licks one of her fingers and rubs it over the spot and it comes off purple.

She wrinkles her nose before looking down to see if Posy's handiwork has spread anywhere else when Gale's thumb is back on her cheek. It's moist, he must have licked it, and he rubs the patch of purple off gently.

"There, perfect again."

Madge isn't certain her eyes have ever been so close to jumping out of her head. She's stopped breathing, she's positive she's going to pass out. She forces herself to take a breath. He's staring at her, not through her, not glowering, but ather.Her stomach rolls and she suddenly feels like she might vomit blueberry all over him.

Why doesn't he say something? What do I do?

Her mind races for a way to break the tension.

"Did you just lickme?"

That ought to do it.

He snorts, "I licked my finger."

"And you put it on me. You are a heathen."

He laughs, that deep booming laugh that she loves. It's probably one of the few things in her life she's truly proud of, that she can elicit that particular noise from Gale Hawthorne.

Then Vick bellows a sort of war cry and has Rory on the ground and Gale has to break up the fight.

It's a big, sticky, purple mess they've made, but Madge decides it was worth it.


	6. Dewey Decimal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Madge wishes she were more useful sometimes.

She'd been trying to help her mother with baking cookies. It was one of her rare 'good' days, she wasn't confined to her bed, shades drawn and a cool rag over her eyes. Things had been going so well until they'd failed to hear the timer. The cookies had all burnt, filling the kitchen and the rest of the downstairs portion of the house with the invisible stench of burnt dough. The housekeeper, Mrs. Oberst, had a fit.

"You shouldn't be mucking about with the equipment," she'd scolded Madge. As if an eleven year old had more reason and sense than her adult mother, who'd simply dissolved into a ball of sobs and apologies.

"Don't you worry, Mrs. Undersee," Mrs. Oberst had patted Madge's mother on the back. "Shush now."

Then she'd given Madge instruction on how to correct the disaster she'd made and taken her mother back up to her room, giving Madge one last hateful glare before disappearing up stairs.

After cleaning the oven and scrubbing the bowls and baking sheets Madge decided to make herself scarce.

Out she went, into the soggy afternoon, to find another way to occupy her time.

At first she thought she might go visit her father, but he's been grumbling about the Capitol being unreasonable about some unstable mineshafts and she's thinks she remembers him saying something about a 'conference call', whatever that was. So that's off the table.

Mrs. Mellark is manning the front desk of the bakery, so no fresh baked cookies from there. She's already visited the dress shop the day before. Her shoes aren't in disrepair, so the cobbler isn't an option either really.

Finally she shuffles up and into the derelict building that homes District Twelve's library.

It's musty and dusty, but the smell of the fading pages of the past has always been something of a comfort to Madge. It reminds her that, in the past, people did more than work, suffer, and die.

She sneaks past the ancient librarian and into the back, snuggling down in the section housing the 820's.

Elizabeth had just told off Mr. Darcy for ruining the happiness of her most beloved sister when she hears whispering in the stacks to her left.

She frowns. Nobody ever comes in the library. Well, hardly anyone. The people of District Twelve have better things to do than to engross themselves in books. Madge had been an assistant in the school's joke of a library the year before and the only time she'd even heard of anyone venturing into the library was when a couple of older kids were caught doing 'unspeakable things' in the back most stacks by the old volunteer who monitored the room.

Curious, Madge creeps to the row behind where the voices are coming from and peers carefully between the upper and lower lines of books.

It's a man, tall and cheerful looking, with a scruffy looking beard and dark hair. With him is a boy, clearly his son judging by his look, similar dark hair and olive skin, he's a couple of years older than Madge, maybe. Her stomach does an odd little flip. They're having a whispered conversation, scouring the shelves for something.

The boy grabs a book from the shelf and gives it an annoyed glare.

"This is girly crap."

"Watch your mouth, Gale," his father tells him.

"Well it is," the boy, Gale, grumbles. "This doesn't have anything to do with plants."

Well of course not. Madge thinks. You're in the poetry section.

They've probably never been to the library before, she thinks. They're likely from the Seam, going off their looks, and so are the least likely people to be perusing the shelves of the library.

She watches them struggle for a minute, pulling books down, examining them, then sticking them back on the shelf in disappointment. Finally she takes pity.

Like a mouse, she pads softly to the end of the row and peeks down at them from around the corner.

"You're in the wrong section," she almost whispers.

She doesn't think they heard her at first, then the man looks around. He tilts his head and looks, searching for the source of the sound. When he spots her, her blue eyes and the topmost part of her blonde head just barely visible from his position, he smiles.

"Hello there," he says gently. "What was that?"

Her courage is leaving her, but she takes a deep breath and says it again.

"You-You're in the wrong section." She points over to the other side of the building, "You want section 630, agriculture."

The man nods.

Before she realizes what she's doing, she's stepped out from the shelf and held out her hand.

"I can show you. If you have the name."

What possessed her, she'll never know, but the man's smile widens and he turns to his son.

"Give her the paper, Gale."

Gale huffs, but hands her a slip of paper. The handwriting is atrocious. Madge examines the name before turning on her toes and heading to the catalog. She jumps up on the little step stool and begins picking through the cards until she finds the one she's looking for, snatching it up, and walking with Gale and Gale's father trailing behind her.

The book is just out of her reach and she stands on her tippy toes to try and reach it. Then a warm body brushes against her back and a ragged looking shirtsleeve stretches over her head and plucks it from above her.

Gale's stormy gray eyes flicker over the cover as he turns his long sought after book in his hands.

"So…we just take it?"

Madge frowns.

Well of course, they've never been here before. She reminds herself.

"No, well, you take it to the front and give it to Ms. Poteau and she'll check it out to you. Then you'll have two weeks to return it. If you don't bring it back on time they charge you a fee for each day it's late," she explains.

"Huh," Gale grunts.

She scampers back to her table and grabs her book, then walks with them to the front, to the desk where the old woman sits to check them out.

Ms. Poteau gives Gale and Gale's father a once over, critically eyeing their shabby clothes and the coal dust forever embedded in their nail beds, but makes no comment. She asks for their name and address and fills out a card for them before stamping the book with a return date and handing it back to them. Madge's check out goes much quicker.

When they step outside Mr. Hawthorne (she remembers hearing him tell old Ms. Poteau) frowns at her. His cheery eyes flicker from the top of her head to her shiny patent leather shoes and he frowns.

"You were here by yourself?"

She goes most places by herself, but she doesn't tell him that. She nods.

She's a rather short eleven, her dad assures her she'll have a growth spurt anytime, and she knows he thinks she's too young to be wandering the District alone. Which she might be, she's so used to her solitary life she isn't sure what is or isn't normal for a girl her age.

"Well," he nods back at her, "Gale and I will walk you home then. Least we can do for all your trouble."

Madge doesn't want them to walk her home. Home is the Mayoral 'Manor'. If they take her there they'll know she's just the Mayor's brat kid and it's been so nice having people speak to her.

"It was no trouble. I can get home on my own. I'm used to it."

Gale tugs at his dad's coat, "Let's go, dad."

Mr. Hawthorne gives his son a hard look, "Gale, you never let a lady walk home alone. Especially a very small lady."

Madge fixes her gaze on her shoes and mumbles, "I'm not a lady. I'm a little girl, sir."

He chuckles, it's warm and deep and Madge likes the way it tickles her ears.

"I know a lady when I see one." His eyes twinkle at her. "Besides, if I ever have a little girl I hope that if she's ever out on her own someone will take the time to make sure she makes it home safely."

Gale rolls his eyes and mutters something about never getting a sister.

She takes a deep breath, "I-I liveatthemayorhouse."

Mr. Hawthorne and Gale stare at her disbelieving for a moment and she looks back down at her shoes and prepares herself to swallow down bitter disappointment.

She expects them to take off, leave her standing under the cold, grey December sky at the topmost steps of the library, what she doesn't expect is for Mr. Hawthorne to pat her on the shoulder. Her eyes, wide and uncertain, look up and catch his. He's smiling.

"Well, then it'll be easy to find then, huh?"

He offers her his now gloved hand and she hesitantly takes it.

When the mine collapses over a month later and Madge sees the somber face of Gale Hawthorne along with his two younger brothers and his very pregnant mother, she remembers Mr. Hawthorne and his warm laugh and his willingness to walk a little girl home. She stands there, hands limply at her sides, her face in a careful, empty mask, and watches Gale accept the medal for his father's sacrifice and she wishes once more, that she were just a little more useful.


	7. Old, new, borrowed, blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Old

Madge wished her mother were with her in times like these. Not that she'd have been much help, probably would have lost interest and dozed off within minutes, but still…mothers are supposed to help their daughters with wedding details.

She's picking through an ancient jewelry box looking for suitable earrings for the ceremony. It's less than a week away and she still hasn't matched any to the simple silver chain and pendant Gale had given her as an engagement gift earlier in the year. Their ancient neighbor, a stately woman who'd apparently had more husbands than she had memory for, had lent her the box of her accessories.

"Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, my dear! Surely even in that backward District you came from they knew the tradition? It's quite important."

They really hadn't, but Madge would eat her shoes before she let her know that.

So she'd graciously accepted the box and agreed to 'borrow' some earrings.

Unfortunately, each one was as ghastly as the next.

No wonder her earlobes are so saggy. Madge thought as she held up a particularly hideous pair made of craggy gold and dotted with rubies that must have weight a pound at least.

She sighed and dropped it back in the box with a clank.

The downstairs door rattles and opens then Madge hears voices in the kitchen. Before she has a chance to greet her guests there's pounding up the stairs and the bedroom door swings open and Posy bounds in. Her shirt is half untucked from her skirt and one of her socks has fallen down around her ankle.

"Madge!" She shouts, "Guess what happened at school?"

She flounces over and flops onto the bed.

"Marcia, remember her? I told you about her the other day, the girl they caught in the bathroom? Well, she was behind-"

"Posy!" Hazelle appears in the doorframe, hand on her hips and giving her youngest child an exasperated look. "What have I told you about gossiping?"

Posy wrinkles her nose as she looks back to Madge, "It's not gossip if it's true, mother."

Hazelle's eyes narrow and her eyebrows shoot skyward.

Their having some kind of power struggle, have been for weeks, over what is and is not appropriate to talk about. It's clearly going very well.

Apparently deciding to let the conversation die for the moment being, Hazelle's face rearranges into a much more pleasant expression as she turns her look to Madge.

"How goes the earring search?"

Madge groans and closes her eyes. Hazelle gives her a sympathetic smile before crossing the room to examine the box of atrocities herself.

"This was on your door," she hands Madge a plain white envelope before picking up the jewelry and carrying it to the bed for she and Posy to sort through.

Madge gives the envelope a look over: white and battered looking, heavier than she would have expected for being so thin, no return address is posted.

She frowns at it before tearing off the end and pulling the note from inside. Her stomach drops to her knees when she recognizes the handwriting.

Madge,

We heard about the wedding and thought you might like this back. It was yours to begin with.

Congratulations and Love,

Peeta and Katniss

It's Peeta's tidy scroll in pencil. There's a smear where he'd erased the farewell message, perhaps several times, and rewritten it. Maybe he and Katniss didn't know if the event warranted a congratulation, or maybe they hadn't known if they wanted to send their love. She'll probably never know.

She had seen them only one time since her return to the land of the living, at Mr. Abernathy's funeral. He'd finally put himself out of his misery, drank himself into a stupor and never woken up. At the service the two Victors had expressions crossing between relief, anger, and disbelief. Madge had understood at the time that, despite his abrasive personality and his poor manners, Mr. Abernathy had been a stabilizing force for them, and he'd abandoned them. Madge had also understood, though, the guilt of survival. She'd watched her mother's depression crush her, the guilt of outliving her twin kill her soul long before the Capitol took her life. That had been almost two years prior.

How they'd learned of she and Gale's engagement was a mystery. They hadn't even spoken to him at the funeral.

She empties the heavy content from the envelope. It slides, slowly scraping down the crease, before plopping into her lap.

Her pin. The mockingjay pin. The object that had given Katniss her title. The pin that had, in some small way, lead them all to where they were at this very moment.

Madge imagines Katniss must hate that pin. She wonders where it had been all this time. Maybe hidden under the stationary Peeta had written the note on, in the back of some dresser in a little used room in their lonely house in District Twelve's Victor's Village.

It was battered and tarnished, dinged, the clasp on the back appeared broken.

Somehow, that's fitting.

"What's that?" Posy asks, looking past a pair of gaudy studs her mother is holding out to her and to Madge's hand, where her pin rests.

"My something old."

New

The dress is green. Not bright or dark, but a pale, like the earliest bud of spring that hasn't seen light but desperately wants to. She loves it instantly.

Madge runs her hand over it, smoothing the nonexistent wrinkles out. It was shipped all the way from District Ten. It had been Birdy's, Madge's unexpected friend from during the 74th Games, before her death and Katy-Jo Lewes had begged her to at least look at it.

"Why green?" Posy asks. She doesn't look terribly impressed with the gift.

"Green is lucky. In District Ten they always wore green to the Reaping for luck, at least in the early years of the Games," she explains. "By the end, green was their color of mourning."

Posy looks over at her, face pulled back in confusion, "Why would she want you to wear a funeral dress?"

Madge gives her a small smile, "The Capitol took so much. They even took a color, something so simple, and destroyed its positive meaning. A lot of the Districts are trying to reclaim the things that were destroyed that way."

They were slowly taking back their history, their cultures, their traditions.

She holds the dress to her chest and looks to Posy.

The girl gives it small smile, "It's a pretty dress, I guess." Her eyes light up, "I still get to wear pink, though, right?"

Borrowed, Blue

Hazelle's weathered hands pin Madge's hair, twisting it up intricately from the nape of her neck and securing it with a mass of bobby pins. Once her hand moves from its place of support the delicate twirl collapses. For the tenth time.

"I just don't know what we're going to do," she sighs as she frowns at Madge's blonde waves. "Your hair is just too fine. It won't hold."

Madge shrugs. She had warned her.

Her fingers, long and tough, comb through Madge's limp hair, "I guess this is why you always do a ponytail?"

Madge nods. Her mother and Mrs. Oberst had always lamented her hair. It was lifeless and would only hold a curl if they used a special hot iron from the Capitol and a very fresh smelling gel, and even then a good gust of air could undo all that hard work. Up-dos were simply an exercise in futility.

The thought of her mother and her cranky old housekeeper made Madge's eyes burn. Her father's face, smiling at her, appears alongside them. Tears began leaking out the sides despite her rapid blinking.

"Madge?"

Hazelle is watching her with a thoughtful expression, there's a small crease between her eyes and her mouth is downturned.

Madge shakes her head. It's stupid.

"What's wrong?"

Her throat is thick and she feels like her voice is coming out in messy globs.

"I just," she forces down a shudder, "I-my mother. My dad. My awful housekeeper." A watery laugh escapes her, "I just-I wish they were here."

A coarse sob finally fights out of her and Hazelle pulls her into a hug.

"Shhhh," she rubs her back. "It's okay."

All of Posy's hard work, her mascara, is surely smeared down her face and she prays she isn't ruining Hazelle's dress as well.

Once her fit is subsiding, Madge pulls back, sniffling and blubbering, and starts to apologize to her future mother-in-law.

"Don't," she gives Madge the stern look she's seen the woman give all four of her own children so many times.

It's just still so embarrassing.

"It's been years," Madge still begins. "I shouldn't-"

"Miss them? Madge, you'll always miss them. Every time something wonderful happens, this, your first child, first grandchild," she gives Madge a bright smile, "every single time something wonderful happens you'll miss them. You'll want them there. I wish Gale's father were here. I wish Posy had known him at all. A month, a year, ten years, it doesn't matter, there's no time limit on missing someone. We can't mire down in that though. You move forward and hope that they're with us, even in the smallest way."

She puts her finger on the knot on the sash at Madge's waist, where they'd secured her battered mockingjay pin, hidden from view.

"Your family is with you," she pulls Madge into another hug. "You aren't alone."

It's suddenly very real to Madge that she's about to be married. For so long, through all the planning and fretting, it had been some distant event that would never actually occur. She isn't alone. She isn't just getting Gale, but Hazelle, Posy, Vick, and Rory. She isn't just borrowing them. They're going to be her family.

When she finally calms, Madge stands and gives Hazelle a watery smile before going to the bag Posy had brought with her.

She digs through several sets of bras and a pair of underwear her mother would kill her for having before finding a simple elastic band and a blue length of ribbon. She pulls her hair up swiftly, secures it as she always did, then ties the ribbon in a bow.

Hazelle beams at her.

"I always did like it that way best."

########

If Gale had been nervous during the ceremony he hadn't let it show. He had that slight smile, like he didn't want anyone to actually see him happy, on his lips and his eyes never strayed from Madge.

Madge had grown up on a stage, always standing behind her father, where her mother couldn't be. Reciting her vows, though, butterflies the size of hovercrafts had raced in her stomach.

Then it was over, quick as it started and Gale was kissing her.

Vick wolf whistled and Rory told them to 'get a room already' before the kiss even ended.

Both were beaming as the turned out to the small group gathered around them.

Katy-Jo Lewes and several familiar wranglers gave her bright smiles and held up, somewhat discreetly, a piece of bread each. Madge vaguely remembered telling her friend over the phone that she and Gale planned on having a proper toasting like they did in District Twelve after the ceremony.

"A whating?" Katy-Jo Lewes had asked through sips of coffee.

"A Toasting," she decided to give her the simplest explanation. "After the ceremony we'd toast bread for the newlyweds."

"Oh, simple enough."

Madge suddenly regrets that conversation as the group begins shouting out congratulations and well wishes at them while flinging the bread at the couple.

"What is wrong with your friends, Madge?" Gale asks her as a burly looking wrangler launches the heel of loaf at them and wishing the best of luck in all their endeavors.

Madge begins laughing.

"Gale," she tosses her head back in a snort. "Gale, they're toasting us."

He stares at her. She thinks he's probably wondering if he's just married a mad woman when it finally dawns on him.

"They're toasting us."

Their old neighbor was right, traditions were important, but as Madge watched Gale and his best men, his brothers, her brothers now, pick up the discarded pieces of bread and begin 'toasting' the guest at her wedding, she also realized traditions could change. They needed to sometimes.


	8. The beginning of a beautiful friendship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Of all the coffee shops in all of the Districts in all of Panem, he walks into hers.

Madge had heard the tinkling of the little bell over the door, announcing a customer's arrival, and had turned to greet them, when she found herself seeing the now unmistakable figure of Gale Hawthorne. She'd promptly ducked behind the nearest row of the finest coffee, imported all the way from District Nine.

Of all the shit luck.

She'd known he was in the area, it had been only two days since she'd encountered him at the Independence Day celebration, but she had never, not in a million years, would have expected him to show up in her place of employment.

He was examining a bag of dark roast, his grey eyes flickering over the words on the bag, when he looked around. Madge kept her head down, trying to appear terribly interested in rearranging the display for a set of handcrafted mugs they'd just gotten in.

"Excuse me? Miss?"

His deep voice jolts her from her busy work. She grimaces and keeps her back to him.

"Hmm?"

"Can you tell me what the difference is between these two? They both say 'dark roast' but one says 'French' and one says 'Italian'…what does that even mean?"

To be honest, Madge isn't quite certain herself. She's sure the names meant something at some point in the past, but their meanings have been lost to the point she thinks perhaps the monikers are only artifacts of a bygone era. She's almost ninety percent certain they're only labeled with the names now for pricing differences.

"Oh, uh, no difference, really." She studiously straightens another mug.

"Then why name them that way?"

Madge shrugs. She can feel him puzzling over the beans behind her.

"But…" He sighs. "You know, in most Districts it's considered rude to not even look at a customer."

"Maybe I don't work here," she tells him flatly. Maybe out and out rudeness will get him to leave.

"You're fixing a display."

Did not think that through…

"Well then I'm clearly busy. Go get someone else to help you." She tells him with faux pleasantness.

His feet shuffle, then she hears him mutter something about 'wheat fed prairie bastards', before he heads to the counter where Katy-Jo Lewes is flirting with very hairy wrangler.

Madge finally takes a breath, glad to have escaped her past once more. She watches Gale discuss the nonexistent differences with Katy-Jo Lewes before purchasing the 'French Roast' and heading for the door.

Before he reaches it, the door bursts open and a gaggle of schoolchildren burst in. They always turned up at three fifty-nine every afternoon for after school treats. Normally, Madge welcomed their energy, but today they were the harbingers of her doom.

"Madgie!" Rowdy, a brown haired, brown eyed, mess of an eight year old boy shouted at her. "Did you make caramel cupcakes for me today?"

Madge feels the room stop as Gale's eyes follow Rowdy's line of vision to her. Everything, every giggle and snort, every bag swung, every chair screeched across the ground seems sluggish and distant. The color drains from her face when Gale's gaze finally reaches her.

Exit, pursued by a former acquaintance.

Madge turns to bolt to the back of the shop, but one of the little girls trips her up and she ends up splayed out on the floor between the tea infusers and the ice tea spoons. She scrambles and tries to continue her escape only to be hauled up by a pair of large hands.

"Oh, thank you," she automatically responds. Then she remembers why she tripped, why she was making an escape, and, much to her annoyance, that reason had a firm grip on her upper arm.

"Madge?"

His eyes are wide. He's seeing a ghost. Flesh and blood and bruised knees. He's seeing someone he thought was dead.

"Madg-"

She tries to pull her arm away, she isn't giving up her new existence without a fight, but his grip is too strong and he clamps down.

"Let. Me. Go!" She struggles against him.

"Stop that!" He yells, his old temper flaring up.

He pulls her back and her instincts kick in. Before she knows what she's doing she's reared back and her fist is making contact with his face. Blood erupts from his nose and he curls back, cupping his nose.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god!" She's never hit anyone in her entire life. She's never felt the need to, talking was always a much better solution.

"I am so, so, sososososososososososo sorry!" She whimpers as she looks frantically around for something to put on his nose.

"Don't apologize!" A girl with wild strawberry hair yells, "He deserved it! He didn't listen! You said let me go and he didn't!"

"Yeah!" The other children chorus.

"Hit him again!" She squeals.

"Yeah!"

"Hit him harder!" Another boy calls out.

"Yeah!

"Break his legs!" An elderly lady bellows from by the window.

"Yes!"

Madge looks at them wide eyed, "What is wrong with all of you? Stop that. Leave us alone."

They look disappointed that they aren't going to get more of a show but finally leave Madge to her work of helping Gale with his now gushing nose.

She snatches up a mug and sticks it to his face to catch the blood.

Katy-Jo Lewes reappears from the back, looking confused. "What in the hell is going on up here?"

"Madgie just decked a guy!" Rowdy explains.

Her eyes widen as she spots Madge, now covered in Gale's blood and holding the mug to his face.

"Ew!" She makes a disgusted face. "I hope you know that's coming out of your paycheck." She looks out at the children, "And I want all y'all to know that's how we're gonna be dealing with unruly customers from now on. I'll sic Madgie on your lil asses."

Madge takes him to the back of the shop and gathers up rags and an ice pack. She dabs the now drying blood off his upper lip and cheek, gently rubbing the side of his nose.

"Hell of a right hook you got there, Undersee."

She makes a pained face. It was a right straight, but she doesn't correct him. "Yeah, sorry."

He reaches up and stills her hands. He's watching her like she'll dissipate at any moment, which if she had her wish, she would.

"How are you here?"

She shrugs, "Horseback."

He gives her a sharp look, "That's not what I mean. How are you alive? We found your body. Your house was destroyed. I saw it."

"You found a body. My mom was the only one home, and I think the staff figured the Mayor's house would be spared, that's who the others were. Dad was electrocuted when he dismantled the override at the main electrical hub, so that the fence would be un-electrified."

He gingerly touches his nose, "And you?"

Madge wrinkles her nose. "I was rescued by riders from District Ten. They arrived just before the bombing started, tried to help me warn those in Town to get out of their cellars. Not that it did us any good."

Everyone in Town was killed, despite her best efforts.

"Why are you hiding?"

She gives him a sharp look, "I'm not."

"What do you call this?" He gestures to the room, "What do you call ignoring me? Not letting me get a good look at you? Nearly trampling a kid to get away from me?"

"Oh, come on, Gale, I can hardly be the first girl to go to such desperate measures to escape you."

She meant it as a joke, but judging by his flinch she may have went just a tad too far.

"You let everyone think you were dead."

"I didn't letthem do anything. I just didn't correct them. I'm not exactly hiding, despite what you may think. My names the same, I don't look any different, I work in the service industry-"

"Why wouldn't you want to go back with everyone?" He shouts.

"With who?" She snaps. "My many friends and admirers? I don't know if you received a head injury during the war, General, but I wasn't the most popular girl in the District. I pretty much just had my parents and they're de-" she takes a deep breath, steadying herself. "They're dead. There is no one that needs me. There's no reason for me to go back."

"My brothers and sister-"

"-are little kids. They've probably already forgotten about me. I wasn't some huge part of their life. Just some girl who brought them food and bad news."

He's on his feet, looming over her, and she thinks maybe she should grab the mug to defend herself with, when he pulls her into a hug.

She would have been less surprised if he had turned into a canary.

Gale's hand is in her hair, fingers tangling in it tightly, almost painfully, and he's pressing her into his chest as if she's the only thing holding him to the earth.

"So many people died, Madge," he murmurs into her hair.

He doesn't say it, but Madge can feel it in his heartbeat thrumming against her chest; in this crazy, messed up world, where so much is gone, so many are dead, she's alive.

Three years and she's never really appreciated that fact, that she's alive. She shouldn't be. She should be among the ash covering what's left of District Twelve, with her parents. For three long years she's existed as a shade of herself, because admitting something as wonderful as the fact that she's alive would've just opened her up to more of the misery that the living endure.

Living in the twilight between alive and dead is no longer an option now that Gale has found her.

Slowly, timidly, she wraps her arms around his waist.

"I know, Gale," she gives him a gentle squeeze. "I'm here."


	9. Kiss me and smile for me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Of all the stupid, impulsive things to do…

Madge growled in frustration and closed her eyes.

Things had been going so well, so very well, and he had to go and kiss her.

Gale had taken her to the opening for the newest hovercraft port. It was a huge leap for Panem, to have mass transit between the District other than the rail system. The infant government was eager to have more inter District travel and communication, and though the trains were fast and well maintained, people just weren't traveling between the Districts as much as was hoped. Trains still held the dubious honor of having taken the Tributes to the Games. That alone kept many from using them, no matter how nice they were.

So the hovercrafts were redesigned as luxury transport. Windows and large, squishy seats had been outfitted to make them more appealing, as well as adding wait staff.

Gale had been part of the committee for Inter-District cooperation and had helped with the development of the ports, their placement, and the logistics of major air travel.

"They did it before," he'd told her during one of their frequent lunches. "There were huge hubs and people flew all across the country, across the world even. We aren't anywhere near as big now. Should be easy."

That had been at the beginning of the project, almost two years ago. Madge isn't sure if that was too quick or laughably slow.

He'd attended openings in almost every District, he'd gotten the flu before the opening in Nine and wouldn't step foot in District Twelve, for obvious reasons.

When it was announced that Ten would be opening its first of many he'd called her on the battered rotary phone she and Katy-Jo Lewes shared and asked her to attend the opening with him. She was hesitant, it was undoubtedly a ploy to get her to leave Ten, go visit his family in Two, something she's avoided for the past six years, since she and Gale reunited.

Hazel, Rory, Vick, and Posy had all ventured to her tiny apartment in the southern part of District Ten, but she'd never gone to visit them. Doing so felt like crossing some invisible line, taking their friendship to another place that she wasn't sure she was ready, or even wanted, to go to.

They were close, but not too close.

They knew every part of the other's life, every dirty secret and painful event. Madge's friends, the people who'd taken care of her since her arrival so long ago, smirked knowingly.

"Boy's smitten," Jefferson, the wiry haired wrangler that had rescued her the night of Twelve's bombing had told her one day.

Madge only guffawed.

Gale was no more smitten with her than a tree was with the earth. She grounded him. It was as simple as that.

Besides, Gale loved Katniss. He'd loved her since he was a teenager. That was an invariable fact.

So she tried to think nothing of it and accepted the invitation. It would at least be a more interesting, and less disgusting, way to spend her Saturday than skinning frogs with the kids at the Community Home.

"That's the watch tower where people will sit and coordinate landings and take offs, well, when there's more than one or two going on," Gale had pointed to a boxy looking structure with windows enclosing the top.

They were standing on the landing strip, an expanse of black material with florescent borders painted on and reflectors embedded in it, when it happened.

Madge was squinting up at the building in the distance, a light breeze rustling her skirt and hair, and when she turned to smile at him and congratulate him on a job well done he dipped down and kissed her.

It had stunned her momentarily. She'd stood there, eyes open, and what she's certain was a dumbfounded expression on her face, while Gale's chapped lips pressed against hers. It wasn't unpleasant, the opposite really, but she'd pulled back.

"What-uh…what are you doing?"

His brow wrinkled, "Kissing you."

"Oh," she frowned. "Thanks?"

He looked perplexed, "You're…welcome?"

Madge's stomach churns and she takes a step back. "Gale…"

His mouth is gaping just a little and she knows that she's about to do something profoundly stupid.

"Gale…"

Hot tears start gushing out of her eyes and dripping off her chin. She turns to make a run for it, hide in the bathroom maybe, but Gale catches her elbow.

"It wasn't that bad, was it?" He asks. She thinks he's joking because he has this sweet little half smile on his face even though he's obviously truly worried about her.

"You can't kiss me, Gale!" She blubbers.

"Why not?"

"Because!" She's edging toward hysteria now. "Because you don't love me! You don't-you can't just kiss people you don't love! I mean, you can, but-but I'm not one of those people! I don't want people who don't love me kissing me!"

"Who says I don't love you!" He finally growls back.

She freezes and studies him through her puffy eyes. Her breath shudders in her chest.

"Because you love Katniss," she almost whispers. "You've always loved Katniss."

There isn't a word in Madge's vocabulary to describe the look on Gale's face. Like he's been kicked in the gut and told a beloved pet had died all at once. Then suddenly it's angry.

"I don't love Katniss. Not like that anyway."

"I saw you with her, Gale. I watched you with her for years. I know what I saw."

"That was a long time ago. Things have changed. She hates me. She's with Peeta Mellark. She's never going to be the girl she was. Pick one, she and I are over."

Madge gives him a hard look, "And if nothing had changed? If she weren't with Peeta, if she didn't hate you, if Prim's name had never been called, you'd be wi-"

"What does any of that matter? Things aren't different! This is reality. This, right here, Madge, is our reality." He jabs a finger out at the airfield then at the ground at their feet. He deflates a little, "I love you."

It feels like she's waited to hear those words from him since she was seventeen. But a nasty voice in the back of her head whispers to her that it's a lie.

"You can't."

"And why the hell not?"

"Because you loved her…" She presses her fingers to her eyes, "and we are so different."

Her eyes still closed she continues.

"The two of you are fire and steel and she inspired a rebellion. I'm none of that. I would have died in the arena. I just barely survived the bombings. I could never do any of the things she did. You can't love me if you loved her, it just isn't possible."

It can't be.

Gale is, has always been, fire and passion. It had scared Madge, truth be told, for the longest time. She remembered when Birdy had arrived in Twelve to prepare them for the 'friends and family interviews' when Katniss and Peeta had made it to the final eight, the former Victor had warned him back then about it.

"You've got a lot of fire, Dorothy. Best watch it though, or you'll burn to ash. Then what will you be? Nothing but a lost little boy with no fire, no fight, and no friend."

It had nearly been right. Gale still had plenty of fight, though he'd redirected it in the years since the Rebellion. His family was still as much a part of his life as it had ever been, but he'd lost Katniss. And his fire had definitely dulled. It wasn't the dangerous inferno that had created the bombs that drove the wedge between he and Katniss, but a low burning ember, a comforting heat on a very cold morning.

Madge knows she's none of that. She's ice and calm. Picking up on things and finding weak points and failings. She was part of the background, living scenery at best, that served a purpose occasionally. Her part was in the schemes, not the action.

After another violent breath she opens her eyes.

Gale is staring at the ground, working something over in his mind.

"You don't get to tell me how I feel," he tells her slowly. "Maybe it's 'cause you're nothing like her that I love you. Maybe she was never what I needed in the first place. Fires will burn themselves out if there isn't someone to tend them, Madge."

"I'm always going to feel like a consolation prize…"

Because she would be. He didn't win the heart of the 'Girl on Fire', the 'Mockingjay', so he'd settle for Madge, less than nobody without her father's title. She hated gutting and processing meat, she hated hunting and camping, she was a complete disaster without running water…she was every prissy poor opinion Gale had ever held about her and more.

"You're no prize, Madge."

She gives him a flat look, "Wow, you're a real charmer, Gale."

"That," he runs his fingers through his hair and tugs at it roughly, "that isn't what I meant."

She was less than a second choice, she was self-flagellation.

"I'm just a second choice. You don-"

"Stop putting words in my mouth," he growls again.

Madge shakes her head, she can feel the careful curls she'd place in her hair coming undone in the humidity. Tears are still trickling out the corners of her eyes.

"I need-I have to go."

She doesn't give him a chance to catch her this time, wind quick as she runs, across the airfield and away from him.

##########

She's curled up in her bed, wrapped in half a dozen quilts, her skin blotching from constant crying.

It's been two days since she ran off on Gale. Two painfully long days.

The most activity she's had is hopping to the bathroom, then to the kitchen, then back to her bed.

She's contemplating worming to the living area, there isn't a television in her room and one of the programs her old housekeeper use to watch is about to come on. It isn't very good. The acting is atrocious and the storylines have more loose ends than half the sweaters in her closet, but it's a guilty pleasure, a kind of old comfort from her past.

After she's rolled to her side she hears a thudding noise. Someone's coming up the stairs to the apartment. She figures it's just Katy-Jo Lewes coming up from the coffee shop for lunch and ignores it until her door creaks open and she's suddenly flung from the bed, sprawling out on the floor in a heap.

"Alright, I've had enough of this. Get up, take a shower, put on some pants, and brush your damn teeth! We are going out," Katy-Jo Lewes yells at her, punctuating each point with a jab of her highly lacquered nails.

"But-" Madge begins to protest, only to be cut off by a threatening snarl.

Katy-Jo Lewes takes her to a restaurant run by one of her fellow 'daughters' from before the Rebellion. It's a comfy place with squishy booths, a patio, and a band.

Rebecca, the 'daughter', a honey blonde woman with a smattering of light freckles across her nose, brought them the special of the day, goulash. She gives Madge a sympathetic smile before she walks off.

"Spill it," Katy-Jo Lewes tells her. "I want the whole story."

And because she can't think of a reason not to, Madge does.

She tells her again about the kiss and the fight. About Katniss, and how she'll never be Katniss, and Gale is making a mistake-

"You are an idiot." She's finally cut off from her hour long rant by a highly unimpressed looking Katy-Jo Lewes.

"He told you he loved you!"

"He doesn't know what he's talking about," Madge picks at a noodle. "Besides, I'm always going to live in Katniss' shadow. I'm never going to live up to that. I'll always just be his second choice."

Katy-Jo Lewes' lips press together and she lets out a long sigh.

"Madgie, just 'cause you're not someone's first choice, don't make you their second."

Madge rolls her eyes, "That's the definition."

"Bullshit."

They stare each other down. Wide golden eyes challenging pale blue. Daring Madge to prove her wrong.

"You are a different creature than you were back in that coal pit of a District. Different from the girl I met when you came here. You're even different since you met tall, dark, and cranky. You'll be different in a few years, trust me, I can attest to it." She smiles warmly, "Sweetie, maybe he loved her, sounds like he did…but he loves you too. There are different kinds of love. Some grow and some fade and some die. The dead ones weren't any less real, but their dead, and sometimes there's a reason for that. That make sense?"

Madge rolls it around in her mind, twisting it and pulling on it, testing it for soft spots.

She can't, there's a part of her that doesn't want to.

It takes a minute, but she realizes her face hurts. She's been smiling down at her meal. It slips off in an instant.

"I messed up."

"Yeah you did."

She looks up frantically at Katy-Jo Lewes, "What am I going to do? He's leaving today! He's going back to Two and he's never going to speak to me again! Oh, god, I've messed up so badly."

Katy-Jo Lewes comes to the other side of the booth and Madge thinks she's going to comfort her, hug her. Instead she smacks her on the back of the head with her open palm.

"Stupid girl."

Madge turns to tell her off only to be met with a piece of paper being held in front of her face. Katy-Jo Lewes shakes it in front of her.

"Well, take it," she tells her.

"What is it?"

"You have eyes. You can read."

Madge takes the papers and examines them. Tickets to District Two on the flight that afternoon. Gale's flight.

"How-wh-how did you know I'd change my mind?" She asks in awe.

"Didn't," Katy-Jo Lewes flips her braids over her shoulder. "If you didn't want them I was going to be relocating. That boy of yours is a fine piece."

Madge laughs and jumps up, pulling her friend into an awkward hug. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. Still gotta get you there."

It's twenty till noon, and the flight is scheduled to leave at fifteen after. Panic jolt through Madge. She'll never make it from where she is now.

"Don't look like that. I thought this through."

#########

Jefferson had been waiting outside the restaurant to take her by horseback to the airfield.

"I brought you to this District, only seems right I see you off," he tells her a little misty eyed.

"Good lord, she'll be back eventually," Katy-Jo Lewes mutters.

She'd waved goodbye to Katy-Jo Lewes and a blubbering Rebecca before the horse had taken off at a breakneck speed. She's windswept and watery eyed when they make it to the airfield.

"Good luck, honey." Jefferson tells her as he hugs her.

Madge gives him a brave smile and heads into the small building where she's to wait to board the hovercraft.

Looking around, she searches for Gale. She's nearly given up, it would be her luck for him to have taken an earlier flight, when she spots him.

He's sitting with his head down, elbows to knees, not really paying attention, dressed in his uniform. Madge bites her lip and gathers whatever courage she has. It's now or never.

"Gale?"

His head snaps up at the sound of her voice. He doesn't say anything, just stares at her, like he isn't sure she's there.

Her voice fails her and she just moves her mouth, miming the words she wishes she could say. Finally she collapses into the seat next to him. It might be easier if she isn't looking at him.

"I'm so sorry, Gale. I was just…scared." Tears begin to build up again and she forces them down, now isn't the time. "Nobody's ever chosen me, Gale. Not at school, Katniss just got stuck with me, not at home, my dad always picked my mother or the District…I've always been an afterthought. Easily ignored. When the story of the Rebellion is told I won't even warrant a footnote. I just…"

She isn't sure what she 'just' wanted. Not to be a replacement? To not exist only to be forgotten?

Gale reaches over and, gently, pulls her to him, kisses the top of her head.

"I'm choosing you, Madge."

He doesn't have to. He could tell her to go to hell and she would feel she deserves it for her erratic behavior. But he's still choosing her.

"Thank you," she gives him a watery smile.

"You're welcome," he chuckles. "Guess I need to go change my flight…"

Madge shakes her head, "I have a ticket."

She shows him the papers and he gives her a once over, "You haven't got any luggage."

Knew there was something I forgot.

She gives him a sheepish grin, "Guess we can resch-"

"No," he shakes his head with a bright grin. "I'm not giving you more time to change your mind if I don't have to. My mother is going to come unglued. She's wanted to get you up there for ages. And the kids…"

He's off on a tangent, telling her all the things he's going to show her in Two, things he's been telling her about for years. She hasn't seen him this excited in ages.

He's probably always going to be a little too impulsive and she's probably always going to be a little too cautious, but maybe that's for the best. She'll keep him from burning out and he'll keep her from freezing in place. They complement each other.

She smiles at him, takes his hand, and leads him to the hovercraft.

It's new. Maybe it's going to end badly, but maybe it won't. She hopes this is the love that grows


	10. Touchy feely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Madge didn't quite understand Gale's near constant need to touch her.

Since District Four, since he'd told her about the bomb and Prim, his guilt, and how angry he'd been, since she'd opened that particular door and hugged him, not the other way around, he'd constantly been finding ways to touch her.

He'd brush the hair from her face and tuck it behind her ears, hold her hand and brush his calloused fingers over her knuckles, hug her and bury his face in her hair…

"Are you smelling me, Gale?" She'd asked him as he'd inhaled her, breathed her in like oxygen.

"You smell nice," had been his simple answer.

She saw herself as his roots, holding him to the earth when there was so much trying to pull him away. His hugging her was just the physical manifestation of that, at least that's what she told herself.

Besides, Madge knew the Hawthornes were, in general, very affectionate, she'd probably received more real hugs from Vick during the 74th Games than she had from both her parents combined in the entirety of her life. Not that her family hadn't been loving, they simply hadn't express it that well. A pat on the shoulder every now and then, a hug goodbye and an awkward kiss on the cheek were their mainstay.

Gale was always giving his siblings hugs, playfully roughhousing, giving his mother and sister a kiss on the cheek, though. They were just a much more physical family, she decided.

Eventually she got use to it, after several months, the hugs, the hand holding, the touching.

Then she and Gale had gone to a gala, something to do with the military she wasn't exactly sure, and they'd dance.

It had been nothing special at first, she'd had to lead him a bit, he'd never done ballroom dancing or slow dancing, but they'd muddled through. As the night had gone on, though, his hand had slipped lower and lower on her back until his fingers were just below the sash at her waist.

Maybe it's a territorial thing. There had been a lot of old men with leering eyes and eager hands.

"Gale," she'd murmured into his shoulder. "Your hand…is a little low."

He pulls back, some of her hair still clung to his face where he'd been resting it against her head, and his hand readjusts on her waist. A small frown forms on his lips.

"Oh, sorry."

Madge couldn't help but laugh just a little. Maybe she's the first girl to ever tell him to get his hands off her backside.

His brow knits, "What?"

"You're a little handsy," she finally tells him. Mostly because she can't think of a better term for it.

Not handsy like the Capitol programs she'd watched with the staff, particularly Mrs. Oberst, where the exchanges had escalated far quicker than Madge had felt was right. The actors and actresses would go from nauseating flirting to unnatural acrobatics in under thirty minutes, a fact that Madge is certain mentally scarred her to some degree.

He isn't even handsy like he'd been back in District Twelve, where his reputation at the slag heap was of mythical proportions.

It was sweet, Madge decided, somewhere between hesitant and eager. Painfully curious about what boundaries she would put up. He's not touching her just to be touching her. It was as if he wanted constant reassurance that she wasn't a dream, wasn't going to dissipate, turn to dust and blow away in the wind.

She pulls him to her, tightly against her chest, and rubs her hands up and down the length of his back. The fabric of his suit is smooth under her palms.

"It's okay," she tells him. "It's nice. Kind of like you want me around."

He chuckles. It vibrates through them, between them, and Madge remembers being seventeen and thinking that laugh was the most beautiful sound she'd ever heard and being so proud at being the one to cause it.

She presses her face to his chest and takes a deep breath, he still smells of detergent, earth, and wind. Just like he always had. She wonders if, maybe, she smells like home too.

A small part of her mind wonders, and she wishes wouldn't, if his lips taste like home too.


	11. Let it go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale liked to sleep on top of her.

She'd known he was a stomach sleeper. His back had healed, the nerves were numb, but he still had phantom pains shoot through it occasionally and sleeping or lying on it only aggravated things.

That first time they'd shared a bed, simply for sleep, had been back in District Twelve. He'd just needed the comfort of her warmth, her heartbeat and breath, to assure him, after watching Peeta nearly die and Katniss' panic, that he had worth. He'd been a little selfish, he'd even admitted it at the time, to use her as his security blanket. He'd know, somewhere in the back of his thick skull, that she cared about him.

During the night he'd pulled her to him.

It had panicked her, waking to find his weight on her, stomach to stomach, his cheek to her sternum and his breath ghosting over her nightgown.

After he'd found her again, after the Rebellion, she'd refused for months to even share his room when he took her on trips with him. After months more she'd acquiesced to a shared room, then finally the bed. It didn't make any sense, he'd reasoned with her, to take up more room than they needed to. There were other officials and men with the military on those journeys, and the few hotels were quick to fill, she was taking up important space. He'd attempted to use the somewhat same logic with the shower, conserve water, not be wasteful, but Madge felt she had to draw the line at some point

Later she realized he just liked having her in the room with him, and in the bed even more.

She'd woken again to find him nuzzling into her chest, an extension of his 'handsy' behavior she'd still had trouble with from time to time. His hands had wandered up her nightgown, one between her shoulder blades, the other on the small of her back, again, his fingers just below the band of her sleep pants.

Quickly she'd crawled out from under him, pretended to need to use the bathroom. He'd groggily, unaware of what his mindless hands had been doing, nodded to her before falling back fast asleep.

Eventually, she got use to waking with him pressing his nose just below her bust, hands in places she didn't notwant them, but that weren't appropriate for him to touch anyway.

It was how things were. Simple as that.

She really hadn't been paying attention. She was so good at reasoning things out on other people forother people, but when it came to her own relationships she was hopeless and blind.

Then he'd kissed her and things had changed again.

She was terrified. She didn't know what he expected or what she even expected.

Relations, with anyone, had always been a distant, highly unlikely possibility. The only actual talk she'd ever received on the subject had been with her mother, telling her she shouldn't use latex, and Mr. Abernathy warning her against a bevy of diseases, real, imagined, and impossible to transmit through intercourse.

She'd not shared his bed in Two, Hazelle wouldn't allow it, so she'd escaped the inevitable for a while.

Then they'd gone to Six for another military gala.

It was an unpleasant District. Dirty and filled with concrete, hardly a plant or animal in sight. The hotel was every bit as filthy. Ancient with dark brick and a neon red sign, probably taller than she was, that simply read 'Hotel' on top.

He'd taken her hand and led her, to the elevator, then down the hall with shaggy ruby carpet, then to the room.

When they crossed the threshold she surveyed it. The bed was large enough, larger than her parent's bed had been back in Twelve, there was a squishy, comfortable looking couch, and, oh look there, a quite large bathroom for her to lock herself in when this inevitably went south.

Gale seemed oblivious to her discomfort as he started stripping off his outer layers.

She decided to play dumb.

"Gale?"

He'd looked up at her, an expression of perfect innocence on his face.

"Gale there's only one bed."

He frowned, looked at the bed, nodded, then looked back at her, "Yeah."

"Where am I going to sleep?"

"In the bed," his brow creased a little more.

"Then where are you going to sleep?"

"In the…bed?" he seemed utterly confused.

She nodded to herself, "So…we're both sleeping…in the bed."

He probably thought she'd lost her marbles. "Yeah, guess we are."

Her stomach churned and she was certain she was turning the color of that awful kelp the people of District Four always insisted on eating.

Madge retrieved her bag, it had come ahead of them, and prepared to race into the bathroom once Gale finished. She bustled past him when he emerged clad in only his boxers.

Once she had stripped off her dress, tossed the painful shoes away, and pulled those awful hose off her legs she examined herself in the mirror. She was pale and lumpy and she hadn't even worn her nicest underwear. That was the least she could've done, package herself in a little more appealing way. This was going to be a disaster.

The schools didn't teach them about this, which she finds far more important than the many fabulous uses of coal.

She'd watched Capitol programs with the staff, particularly Mrs. Oberst, and they were a little too informative. She also hoped they were a little inaccurate. She's certain she wouldn't survive those acrobatics.

Her hand drug through her hair and tugged out the dozens of pins preventing it collapsing on her and she thought. Her worried mind suddenly jumped to a solution.

District Six was notoriously chilly. Madge had, very brilliantly, brought several sets of long underwear and sweaters. She, less than brilliantly, decided that putting all of them on was the remedy to her problem.

########

It wasn't until she opened the door and saw the look of utter bewilderment on Gale's face that she realized how stupid she must look.

"Were you cold?"

She nodded.

As casually as she could, Madge walked to the far side of the bed, picked up the covers, and slipped under.

She was at the very edge, just barely on the mattress, and when Gale reached over and lightly tapped her shoulder she panicked, flailed, and slipped off.

"Madge!"

He dropped off the side down to her. She rolled over, she had on so many layer she felt like one of the turtles she and Posy had seen at the zoo just a few months ago that had flipped on its back and been stuck there until someone flipped him back over.

Gale pulled her up, into a sitting position, and gave her a hard look, "What is wrong with you tonight?"

She could feel herself shaking all over, "Gale, I'm s-sorry."

No tears were falling yet, but she was trembling terribly, like she'd been pulled from a frozen lake. Gale pulled her into his lap and against his bare chest, began rubbing circles on her back, and muttered something that sounded like 'crazy girl' into her hair.

"I can't do it, Gale. Not yet. I'm too scared."

He froze and pulled back, examining her as if she'd just told him she had murdered someone and hidden the body in the closet.

"Madge, you know that's not what I meant. I actually meant we were going to sleep."

Her fingers press to her eyes, "But…"

She's back against his chest and he's chuckling, it tickles her ears, and she forces her face up so that she's looking at his face. He must read the question in her eyes because he kisses her, just a quick reassuring thing, and sighs.

"When you're ready, okay. Not before."

He isn't going to mess this up. She can hear the promise in the tone of his voice.

A weak smile finds its way onto her face.

########

It was during an ice storm in Nine when she was ready.

The trees were encased in ice, making them fragile. They shimmered in the sun and reflected the lamp light in the little town they'd gotten stuck in.

They'd lost electricity during the night and Gale had woken and started a fire in the little fireplace by the tiny bed.

Madge had curled into the tiniest ball, trying to conserve her body heat.

"Come here."

He'd crawled back into the bed, back on top of her, pressing his lips to her neck.

"You are freezing!" She'd yelped when his cold nose had nuzzled into her collarbone.

"You hog all the blankets," he murmured against her ear.

Madge rolled her eyes. Even if she did steal all the blankets he was right on top of her, they wouldn't get too far.

Then he reached down and lifted the hem of her gown. Before she could stop him he'd put his face in her stomach, kissing it and blowing raspberries.

It tickled!

"Gale! No!" She'd laughed.

It wasn't fair. He had the high ground.

Slowly the raspberries became less, the kisses more frequent, higher on her stomach, then her ribs, then between her breasts…

Her gown was gone and she was pressed to him, his lips at hers, then her eyes, her jaw, her neck…

She was breathless when he pulled back, nose to nose, a sweetly questioning look in his stormy gray eyes.

Madge took his face in her hands and pulled herself up, kissed him with more ferocity than she'd ever known herself to possess. Her arms found their way around his neck, forcing him down with her.

"Don't you dare stop, Gale Hawthorne."

When it was over they collapsed, neither one so cold anymore. She wrapped her arms around him, her fingers combing through his hair and traveling the lines of his scars and he'd nuzzled contentedly into her neck. Then they fell asleep, with him on top of her.


	12. Insecurity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

The little blanket is soft and fluffy, almost too fluffy, as Madge runs her fingers lightly over it.

Vick had seen and asked her slyly if there was something she and Gale hadn't told them. She'd given him a small smile, fought off the frustration, and told him no, there wasn't.

"Oh," he'd looked a little disappointed. "I just thought…you two've been married for almost a year. Thought maybe-"

"We're not," she told him, a little too curtly.

He'd upset her and he knew it. His mouth snapped shut and he moved on to the next stand at the market, one a very young woman with a baby on her hip was running, filled with fruits and nuts all the way from District Eleven. Before she could apologize for her rudeness he'd begun busying himself with being overly interested in a green apple.

"Vick?"

"Hmm?" He'd put the apple down and picked up some unfamiliar fruit, examining it.

"I didn't-I'm not mad at you," she sighed. She wasn't mad at anyone but herself.

"It's okay, Madge, sometimes it takes a while to get pregnant." He grimaced, "Look how long it was between Gale and Rory. Though maybe Gale was just a giant pain in the ass and they didn't know if they wanted anymore."

That got a laugh out of her. She shook her head and grinned up at him, she'd dare him to tell Gale that.

The smile that he'd so quickly put there slipped off. She didn't want to talk about it, especially with Vick, even if he was as close to a best friend as she'd ever hoped to have, he was still Gale's brother.

But she didn't make friends easily, never really had, acquaintances, yes, but friends were few and far between. Katniss had been her first true friend, though she felt that bridge was too old and in far too much disrepair after so many years apart to be considered a friendship anymore. Gale and his family, Katy-Jo Lewes and the handful of people she'd been thrust upon in District Ten, those were her main interactions now. Everyone else in her immediate vicinity were just people she knew. She didn't need all the stimulation of too many people, she'd had her fill of it during her time as the Mayor's daughter, smiling and playing hostess to strangers acting as friends.

"What's the matter?"

She shrugged and walked away, to one of the little benches provided by the market, collapsed down onto it. After a few seconds, Vick slouched his lanky frame down beside her.

"You can tell me," he smiles weakly. Probably afraid he's about to learn more about his brother's private life than he really wants to know.

She would laugh at his discomfort, but she's too busy formulating how to say what she's about to. Finally, she settles on, "It…isn't taking Gale and I a long time to get pregnant."

Vick stares at her, not seeming to understand what she's saying.

"But you just said you aren't…"

She busies herself smoothing out her skirt, waiting for him to work through her words. His eyebrows are knitted together in focus, looking remarkably like Gale when he's focused on a particularly finicky problem from work. Then his eyes widen.

"But-don't the two of you want kids?"

Madge presses her palms into her thighs.

She did. Shehadn't, for most of her life, thought children would be in her future, not anymore than she'd thought a relationship was. So much had changed, though, and a child, possibly children, didn't seem like such a distant fantasy.

Gale, she'd always assumed, would want kids. He'd had three siblings after all. Whenever she edged toward the subject, though, he quickly backed from it, changed it, distracted her in any way he could without being obvious, or sometimes a little too obviously.

She'd run through every possible reason for it she could think of.

Maybe he was tired of raising kids. He'd practically helped his mother raise his siblings, was all but a father to them. He was so proud of them, always bragging about their accomplishments and telling stories about their childhood, though. Every single dance recital Posy had and each and every sport competition Rory and Vick had, Gale was there. He was, very much and despite their increasing ages, still raising them. So she couldn't believe that was the reason.

He liked children, and was very good with them, even if he didn't always like that fact. The neighbor's kids, and several of their friends, had latched onto him, finding him fascinating. His knowledge of ropes and snares, archery and tracking, all had earned him a reputation as someone who simply knew everything about the woods and survival. A fact that was, in Madge's opinion, not entirely untrue. The children, the youngest a spindly six and the oldest a burly eleven, had even convinced Gale and their father, formerly a quarrier, to take them to the woods for a weekend. Despite wanting to do nothing more than stay home and stay in bed with Madge, he'd gone.

Gale knew how to speak with children. He knew how to take care of them.

Not only was she an only child, she had no cousins, not even distant ones. She'd grown up a very isolated life. She didn't know how to take care of a child, much less a baby. There were no former babysitting jobs in her past, no diaper changes or messy meals cleaned up.

She couldn't cook anything that didn't involve an abundance of sugar. Candies and fudges she could make in a heartbeat, and ice cream she could handle, but the first time she'd ever tried her hand at a protein based food, a sad little chicken, she couldn't even get the feathers off. Cooking had never been required of her, not with her parents and not with Katy-Jo Lewes. He'd come home to her sobbing over the mess she'd made, still trying fruitlessly to clean it.

Madge couldn't sew, not like his mother. A seamstress had always been available. She'd nearly ruined several of his socks trying to mend them only to have Hazelle step in and fix her mistakes.

Then there was driving. A terror if there ever was.

He'd taken her out, despite her complete certainty that she neither wanted nor needed lessons. There was always someone available to take her where she needed to go, and if not, she'd walk or jog or take her bike. Gale had seen it differently.

"What if it's raining or snowing?"

She'd shrugged, "I'll stay in."

It really wasn't that hard to understand, at least no to her, but Gale had rolled his eyes and persisted.

It had ended with him yelling at her for swerving too much and her in angry tears.

"I don't think that's it, Madge," Vick frowned after listening to her list of failings.

"Then what is t, Vick?" She pressed her palms to her eyes and willed them not to cry. "Maybe he remembers my parents."

Her father, in another life, would have made a splendid teacher. Almost every moment in Madge's life was treated as a learning experience, there were no simple childish games, only lessons. Chess and cards, patterns and lies, she'd constantly learned to play games, practice the art of keeping her intentions, her meanings, veiled.

Then there was her mother…the list of her troubles only started with the morphling. Whether her depression sprang from her headaches or her headaches from her depression was a question Madge would never have the answer to. She'd become an addict to the only thing that could rescue her from the aching of the world she lived in, regardless of where it arose from.

Madge could only conclude it wasn't the children that Gale was hesitant about.

It was her.

Madge, she decided of herself, was more than enough child for Gale without adding another.

"I'm pretty sure he doesn't see you as a child," Vick had grinned.

Madge rolled her eyes, "You know what I mean." She sighed, "He doesn't think, no, heknows I'll be hopeless as a mother. Hopeless as I am at everything else domestic."

Vick wrapped an arm around her and pulled her to his shoulder.

"You aren't hopeless, who keeps track of your finances?"

She frowns. She did of course, Gale was a disaster with budgeting his money. Most of his life had been spent with so little of it when he finally had some he packed it away to the point of having almost none to live on. In the first year after reuniting, Madge had to help him learn to use some of his funds and realize he had money for 'stupid' things. Like new shirts and butter. He'd been so excited he'd taken her when he purchased his mother a real, electric washing machine, despite the recipients protest. "Me, but-"

"Which of you does the shopping?"

Madge felt that fell in with the budget, but gestured to herself. Gale shopping in District Two often deteriorated into a shouting match with the vendors. He swore they were charging too much and they told him he didn't understand the current trends of the market. This often resulted in him telling them he understood growing seasons and that they were practically committing larceny with 'those prices'.

"A basket of strawberries shouldn't cost that much."

She'd tried not to laugh. They were only charging a little more than she'd use to pay for he and Katniss' strawberries back in District Twelve, and she thought that was more than a fair price.

Rather than risk Gale getting into an all out brawl, Madge would go to the market while he was at work and smiles sweetly and never tells Gale she still overpays just a little bit for her wares. Keeping him from a bloodied face, she decided, did entitle her to count 'shopping' among her assets.

"And you're in charge of the garden, right?"

That was a given, she'd had her garden back in District Twelve, and when they got their little house the first thing she'd done was to get Gale to till her a somewhat larger plot of land. She knew when to plant and when to pick and kept the little space clear of weeds. Gale was in charge of 'dealing' with the rabbits and deer that saw it as their own personal diner, but otherwise it was all hers.

"Those have nothing to do with raising children. Gale won't want to be doing it all by himself." She forced a pained smile.

"He won't be. Maybe you don't have any experience raising kids, maybe you don't think your parents did the greatest job, but Madge, no one's parents do the greatest. They just do the best they can."

Her eyebrows arch, "Your mother did a pretty good job."

His shoulders jerk, "She did the best she could, all things considered. She let Gale shoulder a lot of responsibility he shouldn't have had to, not by force and definitely not by choice, but she did. It spared Rory, Posy, and me, but it wasn't fair to Gale. She would probably even tell you that." He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end, "We use to fight about our punishments, because they weren't always the same. But they couldn't be, because kids are all different. My brothers and sister and me, all needed different things. Gale needed the stick out of his ass, Rory needed his ass kicked, and Posy needed to stop being a pain in the ass."

Madge snorts. Vick grins down at her.

"For what it's worth, I don't think your parents did too bad a job with you. You're smart, you're kind," he pulls her a little tighter to his side, "and you're alive."

He holds her there for a few minutes before pulling back and smiling brightly at her. "You'll be a good mother someday, Madge. Maybe you and Gale will do some things the same as your parents, but you'll do a lot different too, because your kids'll be different than you and they'll need different things. And you'll know what you hated and you'll avoid that too."

Madge smiles, genuinely for the first time since they'd started their little conversation. Vick's always brightened her day; she should've never doubted talking to him.

She leans over and gives him a quick peck on the cheek, "When did you get so smart?"

He shrugs, "I've always been smart. I'm the smartest person in my family, didn't you know that?"

She snorts. He nudges her with his shoulder, his face suddenly serious.

"Talk to Gale, okay? Don't hint, be blunt, sometimes that's the only thing that gets through that thick skull of his." He pats her hand, "There's got to be a good reason. I promise."

################################################

Gale hears the door click shut in the front room, signaling Madge has returned from the market. She always tried to go while he was at work, something about him being a 'walking talking disaster' and not wanting to have to bail him out of jail. He really didn't understand it.

He'd come home early from work. One of the idiots in charge had decided to replace some water lines and busted them, leaving the entire military complex without running water, which didn't bother Gale so much, he always brought his own drink, but the others in the building went into hysterics.

Cheerfully, he'd left, hoping to have an afternoon with Madge.

Only she'd been missing, her bike still in the shed. A quick call to his mother and he found out she'd talked Vick into driving her down to the market. That boy was such a pushover. If he'd just help Gale, they could convince her to try driving again, then she wouldn't be using him as her personal chauffer.

He quietly pads down the stairs and heads to the kitchen, finding her putting away her purchases. Gale glares at a basket of strawberries, she probably didn't even try to argue that jerk to a reasonable price.

Before she knows he's there, he sneaks up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist, pressing his lips to her neck. She squeaks in surprise.

"You're home early!"

He nips at her ear, grinning. "Yep."

His right hand snakes under her shirt and his left begins working her skirt up, searching for the bottom hem. Normally she'd turn into him, press her lips to his jaw and wrap her arms around his neck until he picked her up and carried her to bed, but instead she stiffens and gently pushes his hand down.

"Gale…we-I need to talk to you."

That doesn't sound promising.

He frowns at her back as she pulls away, turns to face him, and backs up against the counter. For a few seconds she just stares at him, apparently thinking. Finally she seems to come to a decision.

"Gale, do you want kids?"

Her mouth is set in a little pucker and her eyebrows are drawn together just slightly.

Usually she flitters around the subject, doesn't directly address it, and he quite appreciates that. It makes it easier to avoid.

She would talk about the neighbor's kids, a rambunctious pair that had it in their head he was some kind of uncle to them, with a look of wistfulness. She'd mention names she'd heard, ask him if they sounded nice or too 'District Two'. He'd catch her watching families with babies and little children. She'd even attempted knitting, which was as hilarious as it was heartbreaking to him. The tiny socks she'd made only vaguely resembled a foot, and, after she finished laughing at her own handiwork, she vehemently told him they were only so small because they were 'practice'.

Then, a few months back, she'd asked how he felt about a pet.

"A little dog or a cat?…Or a bird? Fish?"

Animals were only good for a few things in Gale's opinion: wasting food, making food, or being food.

"Why would you want one?" He'd grumbled. "They're filthy and a waste of time. They need too much attention."

She chuckled sadly, "Yeah, you're right. Stupid thought. I couldn't handle a pet."

The look of disappointment on her face told him it was about more than a furry nuisance.

In the back of his head he'd known it was coming, that she'd drop her hinting and come out and ask him the question she so clearly wanted to ask.

He runs his hand through his hair and sighs, "Madge…."

Where he was even supposed to begin he didn't know. So he sighed, closing his eyes, "It-it isn't that I don't want them…"

A lifetime ago he'd said if he didn't live in District Twelve, he would want them. Now here he was, years, a revolution, and several districts, out, without any children.

She takes a sharp breath in and Gale opens his eyes and finds her clutching the countertop. Her eyes are shiny, she hates to cry, believes it makes her look weak he thinks, so she'll fight them until they force their way out.

"You don't want them with me," she finally says, her voice breaking.

Gale feels his pulse quicken and his eyes widen. "What?"

It's ridiculous. Who else would he want them with? He prays this isn't some weird jealously thing. He'd thought they put that to rest before they got married.

"You don't think I can handle kids. I was such a selfish, spoiled brat growing up, didn't have to think about anyone but myself, you don't think I'll be able to take care of them."

She's staring at the ground now, her hand clutched in front of her painfully. Old insecurities bubbling to the top and over and it's all Gale's fault.

He takes a step toward her and pulls her to him, a little rougher than he'd intended, she hits his chest with a little more force than he expects and they stumble back a few inches.

"Madge, there is no one, no one, in this world I would rather have kids with."

She's smart, much smarter than he ever had the hope of being. She rarely loses her temper, he admires her for it, he knows he isn't always the easiest person to get along with. She's funny, not always because she's trying, but through her sheer grace, her smiles, and willingness to laugh at herself.

Any children they had would be getting half her genes, and he feels that's a blessing.

"You were never selfish or spoiled," he tells her. Those words should've never been place on her. She was a bit shy, quiet and reserved, but kind and willing to help people even when there was no benefit to her. And she was anything but spoiled. Gale thinks she may have been one of the most emotionally neglected people in all of District Twelve, and not just because of her parents.

He runs his hand through her hair, pressed a kiss in its wake as he thinks how to say what he needs to say.

"I-I don't deserve kids," he finally whispers into her hair.

He'd killed kids. Innocent people. Prim was the only one he knew, but there'd been others. He doesn't even know the body count for all the families he ruined, all the children he'd stolen from families. Brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers, Gale was responsible for killing them all. He'd killed children, ones from the Capitol and ones, like Prim, rushing in to help. They might not have all been as young as her, but they'd all been innocent, non-combatants.

Then there was The Nut. He'd been willing to bury those within that mountain with their assault. His own father had died, buried deep in the ground within a mine, and he'd been willing to do nearly the same to people he didn't know. People with families.

Madge clings to him tighter, "Gale, you're making amends."

But he'd never be clean of the blood on his hands. Not even Madge, with her sweet smiles and her soft kisses could absolve him of his sins. He couldn't do it, stain a child with being his. He had too much already, far more than he deserved.

She pulls back, taking his hands in hers and kissing his knuckles.

"I don't deserve all this happiness. I have you, my family, a future, and I don't deserve any of it." He closes his eyes, "What if you get pregnant and something happens?"

It was nothing less than he deserved, to lose Madge and any life they might possibly create. He wasn't superstitious, but he knew, down to his bones, he was due more suffering.

"What if you make me learn to drive that horrible car and I crash because I'm 'swerving'?" Her mouth turns up slightly. "We can't live our lives in 'what if's'. You fought for us to have a chance at happiness, a chance for our kids to be kids, not be Reaped or take out Tesserae."

She puts his hand to her chest, "Gale, life isn't fair, you know that as well as anyone, but there isn't some cosmic scale balancing out happiness and misery, and if there were you'd have had more than your weight in the latter." Her hand smashes his over her heart with a little more force, he can almost feel it beating through her chest. "We're alive, Gale."

She's alive.

He remembers finding her, so long ago, in the coffee shop in District Ten. Small and broken, but alive. Later, he realized that while she was breathing, moving, thinking, she wasn't alive, not really. When he finally cracked through her protective shell it was as if she were waking from a years long slumber, unrefreshed, and confused, about so many things.

She'd deserved a chance to live, and he slowly convinced her to.

Now she was trying to do the same for him.

His hand jumps from her heart to her shoulder, pushes her back to the counter, as he lunges forward, pressing her to him. His other hand tangles in her hair, then down to the hem of her shirt, tugging it upward.

"Gale, stop! We need to finish talking," she yells, as he again begins on her skirt.

He takes her face between his thumb and forefinger and gives her a narrow look, "Do you want a baby or not?"

Madge's face freezes as she processes what he's said. Her eyes widen and her jaw slackens with realization.

"Gale-"

But he's already peppering her face, her neck, with kisses, trying to unlatch and unzip everything he can. He pauses just long enough to pick her up, she'd squealed something about not on the counter, and begin carrying her to their bedroom.

Gale wasn't perfect, he knew that, and Madge wasn't either, though he was hard pressed to find any fault in her at the moment. Maybe, with all their combined mistakes, her trying to avoid situations, obliquely referencing things and praying he'd catch on, and his constantly trying to punish himself for all his many faults, they'd be able to raise a child that could bypass all their pain.

A child that could just be alive.


	13. A Lovely Trick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Madge remembered her first kiss less than fondly. It was spontaneous, but not in a good way. Full of bitterness and anger, it had caused tears and a very distinct queasiness in her stomach. It had been such an unpleasant experience that some people, she'd decided, probably just didn't need to kiss.

Her second kiss had been spontaneous too. Out on the on the runway with Gale, it had been so sudden, so unexpected that she'd barely registered much more than that his lips were chapped. She'd run from him after that, stayed away for days before being forced to her senses.

It had been a good kiss, she later decided. A little hesitant, but gentle and hopeful as the look in his eyes when it ended.

Madge had been determined to be prepared for the next kiss, anticipating it at every turn once they'd landed in Two. His family was around, constantly bounding in and out, at their sides, and she was certain he was just waiting for them to have some time by themselves before he tried again.

They went on a walk the first evening, but nothing happened. The second evening, another walk, still nothing. He held her hand, ran his fingers through her hair, clung to her waist, traced his fingers along her spine, but made no indication he was considering kissing her again.

By the fourth night she was brimming with anxiety.

Maybe I'm just bad at it…

She'd also cried last time he'd kissed her. And run off. That, may have, she thought, had some bearing on his lack of action.

He was examining a tree, searching its branches for a nest he told her he was certain was there when she finally felt the little bubble burst in her.

"Gale?"

He turned back to her with a frown, the tone of her voice clearly worrying to him. His eyebrows rose.

Madge could feel her face warming, knew her cheeks were crimson at just the thought of her question.

"Do-was," her mouth had gone dry. He frowned, apparently he didn't speak 'terrified and crazy'.

She took another breath to steady herself.

"Do you want to kiss me?" She finally blurts out.

Gale's frown deepens, his gray eyes flicker uncertainly.

She'd bungled things so badly the first time, he'd been pulling her forward with her life, he didn't deserve to constantly be making the first move. Her mouth takes off before her mind can tell it to stop.

With a slight jump, she lands on him, arms around his neck, pulling him down to her level and crushing her lips to his. He'd put on chapstick, but she could still feel the roughness of them as they pressed to hers.

It started much the same as their kiss at the hoverport, gentle and unsure, and she's positive Gale is in as much shock as she had been that day when he'd kissed her.

As she's about to break it off, he isn't responding, and she's afraid she might've upset him or hurt his neck pulling him down, his arms wrap around her. He presses, bruising hard, as the kiss deepens, parting her lips.

He lifts her, fingers and hands gripping into her waist and hips, back and neck almost painfully. Gale's mouth wanders, to her cheeks, eyes, down to her jaw and neck, then back to her lips. The coarseness of the whiskers on his cheek scratching against her skin.

There's no hesitancy, no gentleness, in this kiss. It's all eagerness and force. When his eyes open briefly, look at her, they're dark, only the smallest bit of light from the now quietly watching moon reflects back at her from them.

It takes her a second to realize, to pinpoint his look. It isn't lust, though that's definitely in the mix, but his look, his hands, his lips are full of something she thinks is just as primal. It's a heartbreaking neediness.

Her back scrapes on something and she realizes they've stumbled back and into a tree.

"Omph," she groans into his mouth as she tries to wiggle from it.

The moment is broken, though, and his lips are less aggressive, his hands become softer against her curves. He put her down, gently letting her drop to her feet, but his hands don't leave her.

He leans down, pulls her close again, and nuzzles his face into her hair as he gently combs the tangles he'd created out.

"I didn't want to scare you off again.'

Madge feels her heart stop. It hadn't occurred to her just how badly her leaving him on the runway had probably affected him. How hard it had been for him, a person so use to being the hunter, the pursuer, to not chase after her, to let her choose to come back to him, she can't even imagine. He'd let her come to her own conclusion, though, and she's grateful for that.

He'd learned the lesson the hard way that chasing a person, no matter how true your intentions were, wasn't always the best way to their heart. It may not hurt the relationship, but it didn't guarantee you a permanent spot in their heart.

Gale, for all his accomplishments, had suffered losses, too many, Madge felt to be fair. She was determined not to be one of them.

She runs her hand along his jaw, tracing it, before pulling her eyes up to his.

His look is still tentative, worried what she's going to say.

"I'm not going anywhere."

She presses a quick kiss to his lips, a gentle promise. Gale's mouth slowly curves up, into a small grin that he quickly buries in her neck, pressing his lips to it.

Madge is done running, done hiding, and he needs to know that. It may be a slow walk to where they're going, but they're going together.


	14. Come To Roost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale had known, had a gut feeling, that he shouldn't have taken Madge to District Seven. Their relationship was still so new, she'd been so hesitant to take that next step, and he didn't want to expose her to his less than stunning immediate post war life. But he'd taken her with him to every other at this point, he couldn't avoid it forever, much as he would've liked to.

The District itself wasn't the problem. It was heavily wooded and full of game for hunts, not an expanse of emptiness, and no smog as was the norm in the more industrial Districts.

There was only one real problem with District Seven, and it was drinking heavily at the bar.

After the Rebellion, after Katniss' trial, and after she and Mellark were sent back to District Twelve, he'd been in a bad way. Drank too much, lost himself in his work, left his family in Thirteen while he traipsed across the country…

His biggest mistake, though, had been with Johanna Mason.

She was combustible and he was fire, and they'd exploded when near each other. It had culminated in a few horrible months of fights and angry not-quite-make-ups, which he whole heartedly regretted.

Finally, after a particularly bad day, he'd gone home to find his mother and siblings on the doorstep of his pathetic and filthy military issued apartment in District Two.

"Gale," his mother had sighed. "You can't keep doing this to yourself. Please. We still love you."

His family needing him had pulled him from that place. They didn't deserve to be neglected, and he had to, he had always had to, watch out for them, keep them safe. What would happen to them without him? His mother was strong, but she'd had him for so long, helping. He couldn't abandon them.

Eventually he'd found Madge, and she needed him too, in a different way. She'd needed him to pull her back and show her the world was a little more bright, at least for him, with her in it. To show her that being alive was a gift that so many had snatched away from them, that she was a miracle.

Breaking things off with Johanna, though, had been messy, to say the least. He'd done it over the phone, out of necessity and out of fear, he had no doubt she could and would kill him if she had the opportunity. There'd been a lot of yelling, screaming, hurtful things said on both sides. They had been a mistake, every moment of them…

"Fuck you, Gale Hawthorne."

Then she'd slammed the phone, leaving him with nothing but the dial tone and guilty relief.

It had been a long, painful process, but his family needed him and he wouldn't fail them like he'd done with so many others.

Now, with Madge on his arm, his biggest mistake was eyeing them, like a wild dog catching the scent of a wounded animal. Normally she avoided the galas; she'd told him once they were too much like the days of her Victory Tour, flashing cameras and dirty old men.

Gale had understood, had commiserated, he'd become one of the faces most associated with the Rebellion and then in helping set up the new government. He'd enjoyed it for a short time before craving his anonymity again.

While he eventually was able to escape the spotlight for the most part, Johanna never would.

Which is why he'd hoped she would once again spit in the faces of the new District Seven Mayor, not show up. Clearly, he wasn't that lucky.

Johanna stood and straightened her back before beginning an unmistakable, if weaving, path toward Gale.

He pulled Madge to the dance floor, kept her there for as long as possible, hoping Johanna would give up whatever it was the glint in her eye told him she wanted. They end up in a far corner of the floor, Gale hoping for some private time, when his fears became reality.

"Well, hello handsome."

Madge looks over his shoulder and he can see Johanna's sneering face reflected in her wide blue eyes. She knows Johanna, knows of her, but doesn't know of she and Gale's shared past.

Johanna strolls around him, running her finger along his shoulder before her hand snaps over and catches his chin, "Avoiding me?"

He jerks from her grasp and gives Madge an encouraging little nudge, away from Johanna's claws. Johanna's eyes widen when they settle on Madge, flickering from the top of her head, along her expensive, if borrowed dress, to her plain heels, then back again.

"Who the hell are you?" She sneers, not impressed with what she sees.

Madge's bottom lip puckers slightly, but she quickly fixes a perfunctory smile on her face, "Madge Undersee."

She offers her hand, but Johanna doesn't take it, only eyes it with a vague look before ignoring it completely and turning to Gale.

"I thought you had a fetish for brunettes with bad attitudes, not bubbly blondes with more boobs than brains?"

Madge's hand slowly drops and a look of hurt flutters fleetingly across her features before she leans into Gale and whispers, "I think I'll-I don't think I'm wanted here. I'll go wait by the bar."

Gale catches her hand. "No." His irritation with Johanna's treatment of Madge making him almost shake as he turns to her. "Johanna, I'm leaving. We don't have anything to say to each other."

He turns, puts his hand on Madge's back, is formulating how he's going to explain how much bigger a mess he'd been in the direct aftermath of the Rebellion to her, when Johanna's strong grip catches his upper arm.

"Nothing to say? I feel like I have a lot to say." Her eyes, full of cold fire, narrow on Madge. "Are you his latest fling?"

Madge just barely opens her mouth to speak when Johanna flips back to Gale, "She's just a tiny thing, how do you have any fun with that? Then again you did like to be on top, she looks like a submissive little brat, probably does every little thing you tell her, doesn't she?"

She's up in Madge'se face, nose to nose, before Gale even realizes it, catching her chin in her hand, squeezing her cheeks unnecessarily tight.

"Look at that tiny little mouth. How does she do anything? Or do you just like the feel of her li-"

Gale is about to push her away, but Madge beats him to it. She gives Johanna a look of disgust before turning to Gale, wide eyed and horrified, shaking her head. He can almost read her thoughts. I've got to get out of here.

She bolts, toward the balcony, Johanna making a popping noise with her mouth to her back.

Gale watches Madge disappear before rounding on Johanna. He deserved his misery, he knew that, but Madge didn't. She hadn't done anything more than show up with his stupid ass.

"What's your problem?"

Johanna polishes off the amber liquid in the glass she'd been swinging around and grinned at him.

"Got rid of blondie, didn't I?" She runs her hand up his arm, onto his chest, "Let's get out of here."

He could smell the liquor all over her, she stank of it. Her eyes were foggy and dark and her stance unsteady. She fell forward into him when he tried to back away.

"One more time?" Her voice was still firm, but muffled by his chest. She held her liquor well, but even she eventually met her limit.

Gale took her by the shoulders and glared at her.

"No." He pushes her along, steering her toward one of the provided drivers. "Get her out of here."

She pushes back, snarling, "You don't get to tell me what to do."

He ignores her, "She's had too much to drink. Get her home."

He turns, leaving her screaming at his back.

#########

Madge is sitting at the edge of a fountain, her cheap heels off at her side, staring at the large, colorful fish swimming peacefully below the water's surface.

He knows she'll be angry; she has every right to be. She'll have worked out he and Johanna had a past, and while that itself won't upset her, he'd had several 'relationships', though none with girls as volatile as Johanna Mason, in District Twelve and she knew it, the fact that he hadn't warned her of the possibility of being accosted probably will.

His shadow, from the blazing white lights of the main hall, falls over her and she looks back briefly before returning her gaze to the fish.

Gale drops down beside her, onto the stone bend surrounding the fountain base. He turns his body toward her and studies her.

She looks pale, well, paler than usual. Her expression is still fragile.

He reaches out, runs his hand up her arm, "I'm sorry."

Her face snaps over, odd uncertainty etching into her features. "Why?"

His eyes flicker to the hall, to where Johanna had all but assaulted her. Madge gives him a pained smile, "She isn't your responsibility."

"I should've kept her away from you."

"How?" She laughs, "People will do what they want, eventually."

He doesn't see how it's funny, not in the least. Annoyed, he reaches his hand up, runs the pads of his fingers over the little red patch on her cheek where Johanna had grabbed her.

"She's mad at me and she took it out on you."

It would've been so much simpler if she'd have taken a swing at him, a physical injury he could handle, Madge's bruises, physical or not, were much harder for him to stomach.

"When…" She bites her lip, "When were the two of you…"

Gale drops his hand from her face; he knows he has to tell her, no matter how much he hates it.

"Few months after the fall." He looks up, squints at the top of the water spout as it bubbles, "It wasn't-not really-a relationship. It was just…"

He doesn't want to say it, it makes him feel filthy and pathetic, to have used and been used like that. At the time, though, that's all he felt he deserved. Something dark and angry, unbalanced.

There were times he still felt he didn't deserve good things, bright and shining things, like his family and Madge, things that hadn't been charred or tarnished by his failures.

She's scoots closer to him, takes his face in her hands and presses her forehead to his.

"I love you, Gale." A sad little smile flickers in her eyes, "The past is in the past. We can't change it, and we shouldn't. We are who we are because of it, for better or worse."

His hands find her waist and jerk her towards him, she squeaks a little in surprise.

"You aren't mad?"

Her eyebrows arch up, "About an ex-girlf-"

Gale covers her mouth, "Not an ex-girlfriend."

Madge pulls his hand away, "Whatever she is. I know you have exes. I think you took half the girls in your grade through mine to the slag heap, right?"

He narrows his eyes, he really hated that rumor. "Actually, I think you're the only one I didn't."

"Oh," she nods, fighting a smile. "Making up for it now then?"

"What can I say? I don't wanna be known as the guy who stopped with one to go."

His lips catch hers and he leans her back on the stone, hands running up her legs and hiking the expensive borrowed dress up to the tops of her thighs.

"Gale!" She snorts into his shoulder, pushing his hands down, "We are in public!"

Who cares?

He persists, nipping at her neck and her jaw. Finally, he kisses the now pink marks on her cheeks, sighing into them.

"I'm sorry she hurt you."

Madge runs her hands through his hair, focusing and thinking, before finally speaking.

"She's hurting too, Gale."

He wrinkles his nose, "She's just-"

This time she covers his mouth, "No, listen. She's lost most of her friends. She stays up here, all alone probably, and I remember her family was killed around the time of her Games. She's suffered. People deal with things in funny ways. Some use drugs, some drink, some work," a hint of a smile flickers on her lips, "some run and hid…"

Gale sighs, nuzzling into her neck and planting a few more kisses as he listens to the soft cadence of her voice reverberate through her chest.

"She's dealing with her issues in her own way. Maybe not the best way, but her way."

########

They pulled up to the ramshackle house in what had once been District Seven's Victor's Village. The yard had long over grown, stumps and wood chips littered the ground. There were several large piles of fire wood scattered about.

Gale sighed. After telling Madge everything, right down to his cutting Johanna off by phone, she'd hugged him, kissed him, murmured soothing things into his hair, before telling him something he'd known in the back of his head for years now.

"You need to tell her you're sorry," she told him as she traced the lines of his scars on his back. "I know it isn't something anyone is really at fault for, things like that happen, it was an extreme situation, but…sometimes people need to hear that the other person is willing to shoulder some of the blame, so they can move on."

Or she'll decapitate me.

Madge stayed in the car as he slowly walked up the dilapidated step and to the front door. He wouldn't have even brought her, but their flight left early and he wouldn't have had time to pick her up, after whatever went down with Johanna went down. He'd warned her to keep her head down, he wasn't sure what Johanna would do if she saw her.

With more than a little uneasiness, Gale knocked on the door.

Maybe she won't be home.

The door began creaking open, of course he couldn't be that lucky.

Johanna peaked out, suspiciously eyeing whoever dared disturb her. When she caught sight of Gale, the door opened fractionally more as she leaned against the frame, arms crossed and a sneer on her lips.

"Come to take me up on the offer?"

"No."

"Good, it's off the table anyway." She swings the door open more and waves for him to come in.

He shakes his head and she narrows her eyes, flickering them over his shoulder, past him, and to the still running car.

"Brought blondie, huh? Not my ideal thre-"

Gale puts his hands up, "Stop, alright. Just let me talk."

Her eyebrows shoot up and Gale takes her momentary surprise as an opening.

"I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I used you and I let you use me. I'm sorry it was so horrible. I'm sorry for breaking it off over the phone, it was cowardly and disrespectful. I'm sorry I avoided you all this time and didn't do this sooner. I'm sorry if I embarrassed you the other night. I'm sorry I hurt you."

He finally took a long breath when he finished. When he looked up she was smirking.

"Blondie make you say all that?"

His mouth turns down, "She just told me to do what I knew I should've done a long time ago."

They stand there, staring each other down with heavy unhappiness floating between them. Things would never be good between them, not really, but maybe they could just be not bad. Civil, would even be acceptable in Gale's mind, as long as it didn't result in Madge getting manhandled.

Finally, Johanna shrugs, "Whatever helps you sleep at night, Hawthorne." She makes a falsely sweet face and wiggles her fingers over his shoulder, in Madge's direction, then turns and slams the door in his face.

########

While he isn't sure whether his talk with Johanna was a success, he still had his head, so that was always a positive.

He pushed the seat rest up and pulled Madge closer to him, wrapping his hand protectively around her waist. She'd been a little too quiet since the last night, when she'd told him he needed to make amends with Johanna, and it worried him.

He pressed a kiss to her head, "What is it?"

She looked up at him, seemingly confused. His mouth set in a narrow line, she knew what he meant.

He felt her shoulders move in a shrug, "Nothing."

His fingers raked through her hair, soft and loose, letting it fall then brushing it off her shoulders. He could guess what the problem was.

"Is it what Johanna said?"

Madge was a little…uncertain, he wasn't even sure if that was the word. She was uncertain of herself with him, anyway, or so it felt. While he knew she was aware that the slag heap rumors were bullshit for the most part, there was always a little anxiety that seemed to creep into her body when they got too close to tumbling over the edge.

Gale can't see her face from his angle, but he can visualize the little pucker of her lip as she frowns, the downward slope her eyebrows would take.

"Look, she was drunk and she just wanted to get under my skin." And she'd done a damn fine job of it. "I-I'm really impressed with you. If it had been me, some guy getting up in my face and saying that crap about you, I'd have decked him."

Suddenly, she swivels in her seat, so that she's looking him in the eyes. "Are you saying I should've hit her?"

"No," he shakes his head. Madge could hit, and hit well, he knew from experience, but hitting Johanna Mason wouldn't have ended well.

Besides, Madge had more self control than that. He'd only seen her lose her temper a few times, and even then it had been a tightly coiled thing, barely fighting its way out of her. Years of smiling and pleasing and never outwardly expressing herself had made her into something of an enigma to Gale. He let his emotions out, yelled, hugged, scowled and smiled, he had a hard time faking things. Madge hardly raised her voice, had been stiff in hugs until he wore her into them, and her expressions were almost always muted. He'd had to learn to read her, something he still failed at more often than not, to tell if he was on the right path.

She picks at her skirt, tugs at a little loose thread in the hem, won't meet his eyes as she speaks this time.

"You won't compare me will you?"

For a moment, he isn't quite sure what she means. The thought had never even occurred to him, to compare Madge to anyone, especially not Johanna.

"It's just…" She smoothes her skirt, "I knew, I mean, I know you've had a few…you know, and," she closes her eyes, " I don't exactly have droves of former boyfriends."

He realizes, belatedly, how she meant to compare them. It almost makes him laugh, she's ridiculous sometimes, but he loves her for it.

"There's no comparing, Madge."

They were too different, and he needs Madge's calm, her control, more than he'd ever needed anything in his life.

He takes her chin in his hand and forces her to look at him, "I'm glad there aren't droves, I don't thinkI could handle the competition."

She's quiet for a minute, studying his face, when her lips quirk up, a soft little thing, but it's there. Gale grins, presses his forehead to hers.

"You know, she didn't tell me anything I couldn't have guessed," she finally says, a sly little smirk forming on her face.

Gale wrinkles his nose. What?

She leans forward a little, cheek to cheek, whispers in his ear, "About certain proclivities."

He groaned. He loved it and hated it when she talked like that.

"I mean, you practically smother me every nigh-"

In one smooth move he pulls her into his lap, one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees with his hand working under her skirt. He nuzzles the collar of her shirt out of the way and starts nipping at her collarbone.

"I'll show you 'proclivities'," he growled as she laughed and protested that they were 'still in public, Gale'.

Their little trip had at least not resulted in a massive setback in their relationship.

Though he doubted he'd want to return to District Seven, with or without Madge, anytime in the next century.


	15. Where we’re going

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale found the house while out driving one day and loved it from the moment he saw it.

They were pushing to give him a desk job now that the new government was more settled, most of the work he'd been doing was finalizing, he won't be able to drop in on Madge in Ten as often. He can't stomach that.

He couldn't imagine his life without her, and he didn't want to.

He'd considered getting another apartment, like the one he'd had when the military had paid for it early in his career, but it seemed a waste to him. Pouring all that money into something he wouldn't even own reminded him too much of the little house his family had rented from the government in the Seam.

There was his mother's house, but that would put an end to he and Madge's nighttime activities. She wouldn't even let them share a bed during visits. He still cringed remembering the first time they'd stayed there after getting together.

"Gale," his mother had shaken her head, fighting off a smile. "I cannot let you and your girlfriend share a bed when your brothers and sister are in the house."

He crossed his arms over his chest, "Why not?"

Her eyebrows rose, "Don't pout. You know why."

Gale uncrossed his arms, then recrossed them, huffing. "We aren't going to do anything. We just got together. She ran off crying when I kissed her."

"Maybe you're out of practice," she smirked. "Honey, she may not be up to kissing, but the way you're pawing at her constantly, even if you aren't doing anything in bed, I guarantee your siblings will think you are."

"I don't paw at her," he muttered. "And we share a bed all the time."

He'd belatedly realized his mother wasn't aware of that bit of knowledge when she turned to him with arched eyebrows and wide eyes.

Damn.

"And why, exactly, do the two of you need to share a bed all the time? Is there a bed shortage at the hotels that I'm unaware of?"

Gale rubbed the back of his neck and avoided her stare.

"Uh, I mighta made it seem like, you know, they needed the rooms for the other guys and their families, and, uh, made her feel a little guilty for taking up space…"

It hadn't been a total lie. There were a lot of officials and military officers traveling, filling up the tiny hotels. They often did run out of rooms. The bed thing was a little bit more of a stretch, but she hadn't put up much of a fight, so he didn't feel too guilty.

His mother's mouth had pressed into a thin line. "The answer is still no."

In the end he'd listened to Rory snore all night instead of the soft, infrequent noises Madge made. He'd spent the next few nights racking his brain on how to avoid the same situation the next time the two of them came up.

It had been a blessing in disguise. Madge had been a ball of nerves about the bed situation, had it in her head he was expecting her to jump his bones the first night out. He wouldn't have minded it, but he certainly hadn't thought it was even the remotest of possibilities. While she was fine with him touching her, kissing her too, it had turned out, even practically crushing her in her sleep, she just hadn't been ready for that.

They were well past that now, and he was constantly grateful for it.

He'd continued to accepted his mother's hospitality, even with the stipulations it put in place, for the short stays in Two he and Madge made. Now, though, it just wasn't an option, not for him.

The possibility of not seeing her as much as he had was unacceptable, especially when there was a house as perfect as this just ripe for the picking.

Enormous old trees with limbs heavily laden with lush leaves surrounded it, cut it off from the neighbors for the most part. It was larger, much, much larger, than his family's home back in the Seam had been, but far smaller than the Mayor's house had been. Stone and wood, two story with a wide porch and a sunny patch in the backyard for a garden.

"I can't believe you just bought a house," Vick grunted as he helped pull the carpet out.

"How do you know she'll even want to move up here?" Rory wheezed. "She might turn you down flat. Then what? You're stuck with this stupid house."

Gale just ignored him and the bubble of worry in his stomach. He didn't know what Madge would say about the house. He hoped, prayed, she would see it for what it was: the next step in their relationship, the next step toward what he felt was their future.

He'd just finished stripping the hideous blue floral wallpaper from the master bedroom upstairs, when there was a soft knock on the door. His mother stood smiling in at him from the entrance.

"Brought you something," she held out a little package, a brown paper bag.

Gale took it, opening it and pulling out a small wooden box from the bottom. He opened it to find a small pendant, silver with a tiny stone, shimmering white and no bigger than his smallest finger nail.

He dumps it into his hand and examines it, rolls the smoothness between his fingers.

"It's a pearl," she tells him. "It's been in your father's family for ages. He gave it to me when we got engaged. I thought about pawning it, a few times," she made a pained face. "I just-never could part with it."

Gale felt his mouth droop. She looked disgusted with herself for her one small luxury, her only memento of her long dead husband.

"Mom," he reached out and pulled her into a hug. "I'm glad you didn't sell it."

She wouldn't have gotten even a fraction of its worth, monetary or sentimental, if she had. It was so tiny, he thinks she's probably had it with her every day since it was given to her. It's possibly the only thing besides their clothes and Posy's rag doll that survived the trek to District Thirteen, because of its size.

He pulled back. "Why are you giving it to me?"

She plucked it out of his hand and smiled at it.

"You're going to ask Madge to move to two? Move here?"

Gale gave her a cautious nod.

"Move here. Not get married." Not yet anyways.

His mother took his hand, pressed the pendant into his palm. "You love her. You're going to ask her someday, and you're very spontaneous, Gale, I don't want you proposing to the poor girl with nothing at hand."

########################################################

"Gale who are we visiting?"

He'd had to cover her eyes with a strip of cloth; she wouldn't stop peaking from the passenger side seat.

"I'll trip and fall, you know?" She told him, trying to look annoyed as he opened the car door for her, but failing miserably. There was a trace of a smile fighting its way onto her face.

Gale grunted as he picked her up, causing her to squeal. The neighbors are going to think he's some kind of kidnapper. He carries her up the steps and quickly opens the door, depositing her gently onto the wooden floor, her shoes softly clicking as they make contact.

He'd left the windows open, letting in the fresh spring air, warmth, and sunlight. Dust dances in the light, hovering over the bare floor. It smells like fresh paint and cleaning solution.

He unties the cloth and steps back.

Madge's eyes widen as she stares at the room, dumbstruck for an eternity before she speaks. "It's…a house."

"Yeah. Do you like it?"

He sees her ponytail sway as she nods, turns her head and inspects the strange new surroundings.

Gale takes her silence as an opening to explain all the great things about the house.

Running water. That's very important to her.

Heat and air. She hates the cold, but she also loves the air conditioning, so a plus.

She can pick out the furniture, the wall colors, the flooring, he'll even let her get new appliances even though he feels the current ones are more than adequate.

It'll be her home. More a home than her parent's government designed and decorated house back in Twelve had been and more a home than the little apartment she shared in Ten, which actually belonged to her friend.

He might technically own it, but he was giving it to her, if she wanted it. He'd cleaned it out, torn it down, stripped it to its bones so that she could make it her own.

She's very quiet, walks into the kitchen and running a hand over the stone of the counter.

"You…want me to move to Two?"

The uncertainty in her voice makes his stomach drop.

"I…You know about the job." He runs his hand over his face and lets it settle on his neck. "I know it's kind of sudd-"

Gale is nearly knocked off his feet by the force of Madge as she flings her body at him. Her face is pressed into his sternum, her arms locked around his waist. "Yes."

That was easy.

She looks up at him, a bright smile on her face, "I've been so worried, since you told me they wanted you more permanently in Two. I-I was scared, didn't know what we were going to do." She sniffles, fighting off the shine of tears in her eyes, "I was going to ask you if-if you'd want to move in together, but I was afraid-"

He cuts her off with a hard kiss, then laughs and she presses her ear to his chest. They'd been on the same page at least, he liked it when that happened.

She's started giggling when he dips down and begins kissing her again, first her lips, then peppering her face and neck, working down to her neck…

He's about to lower her to the ground, get the christening underway, when she starts babbling about all the things she needs to do.

"-and how do you feel about sage for the walls? Or maybe taupe-"

Gale covers her mouth with his hand. She could paint the walls fluorescent green for all he cared. As long as she came with them, it didn't matter.

"Don't care," he grunts before heaving her up. Maybe she'd get the right idea if he took her to the bedroom. Not that there was a bed, one more thing she'd get to pick out, but he didn't care much at the moment. He's reasonably certain Rory left a drop cloth in there and that'll do as far as he's concerned.

As he's finally getting her to cooperated, jumping up and wrapping her legs around him once he's up the stairs and slamming the bedroom door behind them before pushing her up against it, he feels his mother's pendant in his pocket.

He doesn't think they're ready for marriage yet, but her reaction and having the little charm at hand makes him a little more certain that's where they're heading.


	16. Nettling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Madge was already annoyed with him and the day had just begun. He'd talked her into sharing a room with him again, they'd done it on their last few trips, but this time he'd booked one with only a single bed.

"I told them two beds," he explained to her, trying and failing to look innocent.

Madge had crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. After she'd gone to the desk to demand another room, only to find them all occupied, she'd returned and tossed her bags onto the little couch.

Gale grabbed them off and put then next to the bed.

"You take the bed. I messed up, I'll take the couch."

"You won't fit on the couch." He'd end up with a crick in his neck and she wasn't in the mood to rub it out.

Things had gone downhill from there.

When they'd gone to dinner one of the local magistrates took a sudden shine to Madge, talking to her for most of the evening and asking her to dance several times; something that hadn't sat well with Gale when she'd finally accepted one of the offers.

"You really should leave Ten," he'd told her as the evening died. "It's just a dead end for someone with as much promise as you. Your father was a mayor, am I right?"

Madge nodded, backing away from him. He wore too much cologne and ate too much of the seasoned dip, the combination was nauseating to her.

"Perhaps you could join one of the committees? If you wanted a position there are some avenues I could direct you to."

She felt a hand slid around her waist, settle at her hip, and pull her back against something solid.

Gale's hand pressed into her, wrinkling her dress slightly, as he held her to him and glared at the magistrate from over Madge's shoulder. "If she wants on a committee Ican help her."

The man had nodded, looking a little flustered. His eyes flickered from Gale's hand clutching at Madge, to Madge's fancy dress, then to Gale's irritated glare. "Of course, General. I didn't realize Miss Undersee was, ah, with you."

Madge felt her face heat up. Gale was pressing her into him almost obscenely. Like she was his toy and the man had dared to try and play with her.

He'd rushed off, casting frightened looks at Gale as he did.

"Gale!" She narrowed her eyes at him, pushing his hand from her and backing away.

"He was staring right down your dress!"

"Like you don't stare down girls' dresses all the time," she huffed.

It was a low blow and she knew it. Gale was much less dirty minded since the Rebellion, less inclined, at least since she'd been reacquainted with him, to have wandering eyes and hands than he had when she'd known him before. Still, she wasn't fairly positive the man hadn't been looking, though she wasn't completely certain. Either way, she didn't need a bodyguard. She could take care of herself. She always had, and it nettles her for him to think she couldn't.

"Fine," he growled. "Next time I won't help."

She pressed her fingers to her temple. "It isn't the help-"

"Whatever."

He'd thrown up his hands and stormed off, already a little tipsy, she'd later realize.

She'd gone on a walk around the golf course behind the hotel, over the lighted bridge on the lake on the grounds, then through the garden of prickly plants before heading back in with the plan to shower and go to sleep, hoping for a better tomorrow.

Her feet were halfway through the lobby when she glanced over and saw Gale still sitting at the bar. It was well past midnight and the poor hotel workers, a group of pimply facedt, exhausted looking youths, were eyeing him warily.

"He won't get up," one of them told her when she asked.

"The bar cut him off half an hour ago and he just won't leave."

So, in the interest of saving the staff from the wrath of Gale, Madge had taken up the seat beside him. He was staring at his now empty glass, clutching it in his hands.

"Gale," she whispered, "it's time for bed."

He turned his unfocused gaze to her, trying to steady her in his eyes. "Madge?"

His mouth turned up and he released his glass, reaching out and pulling her to him, burying his face in her hair and inhaling deeply.

"Are you smellingme, Gale?"

"You smell nice."

He smelled like alcohol. Reeked of it. She wondered how many glasses he'd downed before they'd cut him off.

She stood and pulled him from his seat, letting him lean into her.

"Lift your feet," she grunted. He'd gotten heavier since the last time she'd helped him stumble drunkenly anywhere.

His face stayed pressed into her hair, "I was-sh trying to hel-lp you."

She nodded, "I know."

"Why d'you get s-so mad?" His nose pressed into her cheek and his harsh breath filtered past her nose, she cringed.

"I'm not a possession. You can't just scare off anyone I talk to."

He grunted and she sighed. Maybe she'd try to talk to him about it when his hangover abated…in a couple days.

She tugged him toward the buttons for the elevator only to have him make a strangled noise and pull her to the stairwell door.

"We are not taking the stairs." He was nowhere near steady and she wasn't strong enough to lug him up them.

"No elevator."

His eyes flickered over the silver plated doors as the little bell signaled it had reached them before he yanked Madge by the arm through the door to the stairs.

Feet unsteady and painfully off balance, he began climbing the steps, dragging Madge behind him.

"Gale!" It was seven floors up. He was drunk and she was in heels. It was a bad choice in all directions.

"No elevator." He grunted again, giving her a tug up the step.

They'd made it up to the second flight when Madge's right heel slipped. She started to fall, but managed to catch herself on the railing, screaming, hitting her elbow, and guiding herself down in a controlled slide to the landing. She sat, feet still propped on the lowest steps out in front of her, catching her breath and wondering if the hotel had cameras in the stairwell.

Gale must've seen her fall, because before she's even started to get up he's stumbled down to her, dropping to his knees and hovering over her.

"God, Madge, you'v-ve got to be more careful."

She's seconds away from telling him if she hadn't been being dragged by a drunk up seven flights then she would have been careful, when he begins running his hands along her ankles, up to her knees, then grabs her hands.

"What are you doing?"

He reaches over her. "I-uh heard s-something hit."

How he heard that over her yelp she doesn't know. She rubs her sore arm. "It was my elbow."

Gale takes her arms and runs his fingers over the reddened area gently. She hasn't even formed the words 'thank you' when she feels his lips press to it, feather light.

"All better."

Before she can stop herself she grins at him, "I hurt my butt too."

Madge is eternally grateful he's always been a mostly good-natured drunk when he snorts, "Well r-roll ov-er."

She laughs as she looks at the stairs stretching upward. They'll never make it up.

"Gale," she pulls her legs back to her, crosses them, "can we please take the elevator?"

He can't make it up the stairs himself and she really doesn't want to try it again.

A few seconds pass and he stares at her elbow, he's still holding it, rubbing his thumb over the mark. His eyes flicker up the stairs then back to her, softening on her arm, thinking.

"It reminds me of the mines."

Of course.

Madge feels her mouth go dry. She hadn't even made the connection, probably wouldn't have. The mines hadn't been the looming terror in her life that they had in his.

She scoots closer to him and runs her hands up his arm, "I'm sorry. I didn't even think about that."

"Of cours-se you di-didn't," he snorts.

Her hand yanks back. She should've known better than to offer her poor comfort.

She starts to stand when he pulls her back down and to him. "I d-didn't mean it like it s-s-sounded-d."

They sit on the landing for several minutes, Gale stroking Madge's hair, fingers slowly working the loose waves out. His breathing is a little uneven.

"Every day we got on them. Down. Up. Every day. I'd pray they kept working. I used to wonder what would h-happen if they decided to cut the electricity while we w-were down there. I thought I was going to die down there. Like my d-dad." He sighed, rubbed his free hand over his eyes as he sat back against the wall. "They made all thes-se noises. Always thought the cables-s would sn-snap. And they'd-d jerk, make you feel l-like you w-were gon-na fall."

He stares off, remembering the dark pit he'd been lowered into day in and day out.

Madge wrapped her arms around his waist, awkwardly, and gave him a little squeeze.

She holds him for a few more minutes, waiting for his breathing to steady out, thinking about what she wants to say.

"These aren't elevators to the mines." She cranes her face up to look at him, "I'll be with you. The whole way."

His eyes drift closed and she worries he's passed out. She's begun planning how she's going to get him out and up to their room, when he jerks, lumbering up. He stretches, his dress shirt hikes up a little and she catches a glimpse of the muscles of his stomach before he turns back to her and grabs her hands, hauling her to her feet.

"Let's go to bed."

################################

Gale's eyes flicker from the seam of the doors to the lighted numbers as they wait for the elevator to slide open for them. His hand, fingers laced with Madge's, is clammy.

When the bell chimes and the doors open his face pales.

After a moment's hesitation he nods and walks on, still crushing Madge's hand.

As the doors shut he lets go and curls his arm around her shoulder, pulling her to his chest. He toys with her hair as he continues to watch the numbers tick by until they reach their floor. He pulls her, practically picks her up and carries her bodily off, just in case the doors decide to shut or the cables snap.

Her hand wraps in his again and she pulls him to the room, keying in the access number, and leading him in.

"Get ready for bed."

She changes in the bathroom while he drops to the couch and begins trying to take off his boots.

By the time she's put on her pajamas, undone her hair, and brushed her teeth, he's only managed to take off one boot.

"Oh, Gale."

She drops down in front of him and unties his other boot, yanking it off, before helping him unbutton his shirt. He watches her fingers quickly work each one through their hole, then her hands slip under his shirt, over his shoulders, pushing it off.

"You should've l-let me help you get undressed," he mumbles with a smirk.

Madge leans forward and rubs her nose with his, "No, and you're on your own with your pants."

He groans.

She pulls down the sheets, smoothes them, and fluffs the pillows before turning to find him struggling to pull his dress pants off.

"St-stupid mat-erial."

Madge covers her mouth to keep her amusement in. He's going to hurt himself, twisting and fighting on the couch with his pants.

"Stand up," she tells him as she crawls over the bed and jumps in front of him.

She pulls him to standing, notices he hasn't even unbuttoned and unzipped, and shakes her head.

"You're a helpless drunk."

Her fingers quickly unfasten and unzip him before tugging his pants down.

"Sit," she commands, and he complies, falling back to the couch with an amused grin.

With a final tug he's in his boxers and undershirt and she's tumbled back onto the floor. He stares at her, eyes running along the hem of her nightgown and the hints of her sleep pants underneath. Her face warms.

"You must think I'm pretty st-stupid, huh?"

She snorts, "No, those pants really had a strangle hold on you."

His face flickers with annoyance as she gets to her feet. He reaches out and takes her hand.

"I meant ab-bout the elevator."

His hand tightens around hers, his thumb rubbing over her knuckles. Madge reaches her free hand out, runs it through his hair, smoothing the back.

She can't even imagine what it must've been like, to be lowered into that hellhole day after day. To never know, with any certainty, if he'd come back up, see sunlight and breathe fresh air ever again. To have to go into the same endless misery that had taken his father.

"Never."

He watches her, grey eyes fixed on blue, searching for any hint of insincerity in them.

A little yelp escapes her lips when he suddenly yanks her forward, arms crushing her tightly to him. His face presses into her stomach, she can feel his hot breath through the fabric of her nightgown. It sends goose bumps up her arms and a shiver down her spine.

After a few stunned seconds, her pounding heart and uneven breathing calm slightly, and she manages to wrap her arms lightly around his neck and shoulders where they press into her. He's actually much more manageable at this level. She toys with the ends of his hair that tease at the nape of his neck.

They stay like that for several long minutes before Madge hears Gale softly snoring against her.

When she pulls back, tries to tug him with her to the bed, he blinks blearily up at her, hints of confusion in his drunken eyes.

"No," he shakes his head. "I m-messed up. You get the b-bed."

She crouches down and heaves him up, his shoulder over hers, guiding him to the bed.

"You're too tall for the couch."

"Bu-"

"You-just stay on your side and I'll stay on mine, alright?"

He freezes and looks down at her through his dark lashes, waiting for her to say something else.

"Serious?"

She nods.

His mouth starts to turn up, she can see the little traces of his dimples forming. In one smooth move, much smoother than his drunken state should've allowed, he tosses her to the bed, sliding in after her.

Madge scrambles away, causing him to laugh at her scandalized look.

He's on his stomach, has his pillow tucked under his cheek, arms wrapped around it, as he watches her crawl to the far side of the bed and pull the covers up to her chin. She rolls to her side, back to him. Normally she sleeps on her back or on her other side, but since she doesn't feel like staring at him as she drifts to dream land this is the best decision. She mutters, "'Nite, Gale."

Eyes closed, heavy and burning, she's seconds from sleep, when she feels his calloused fingers in her hair. At first she ignores it, pretends to have already gone to sleep, then he reaches under the blanket and gives her a pinch. She yelps.

"I know you aren't asleep."

Madge rolls over and glares. "How's that?"

He's grinning, like he has some secret. "You breathe different." The grin slips, "I just wanted to say I'm sorry you got hurt."

Gale's fingers reach out and run over her elbow. It's perfectly fine now, she may or may not get a small bruise.

"It's fine." She starts to roll back over, but he stops her.

"What?" It's annoying. She's tired and sore and her eyes burn. He may be drunk and chatty, but she isn't.

"I don't look down girls' dresses."

For a moment she just stares at him. Of all the thing for him to bring up…Madge snorts.

"I know Gale. I'll never besmirch your honor with such slander again."

His eyes narrow, his sluggish mind trying to work through what she's said, then he nods, looking satisfied. "Good."

She thinks that's the end, but his hand stays on her, resting on her elbow, fingers wrapping around it and keeping her from turning her back to him. His eyes drift shut and his breathing slows.

Annoyed as she is that he's clinging to her, but comfortable none the less, Madge closes her eyes.

Her mind tells her to uncurl his fingers from her elbow, but she finds she likes the security it offers. Warm and rough against her cool arm, the weight of it providing something solid for her to hold onto as her other hand sneaks up and comes to a rest on his.

Heavy lids drift shut and she feels the bed shift a little as her mind shudders into sleep. Weighty warmth covers her, wraps around her, and she sighs into it.

Her irritation ebbs. It isn't his fault he's anxious about the elevators, it's something they can work on. She can't make it up the stairs in heels, especially if he makes getting drunk a running occurrence. She sincerely hopes he doesn't though.

It isn't his fault the hotel gave them only one bed, though he'd been talking about sharing for a trip or two now, so she suspects he may have been lying in some way or another about that.

She'll have to work with him over his possessiveness too; she can't function if he doesn't trust her judgement. She's taken care of herself for years; she needs a friend, not a knight…especially not an inebriated one.

Madge sighs again and pulls the solid warmth closer to her.

They'll talk in the morning.


	17. Nettling, pt 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale didn't understand why she was so defensive.

He'd only been trying to help her, protect her from that filthy lecher. The old man, he was old enough to be her father, had been leering at her, chatting her up all night, slowly wearing her down to a dance. Gale had watched him the whole time, trying to catch the man's eyes and warn him to keep his hands where Gale could see them, to no success. He didn't touch her inappropriately, but he was thinking about it, had the look of a man wanting to make a move, so when he cornered her and Gale saw her step away, hemade his move.

The bastard had the gall to tell her he would help her get on a committee.

"If she wants on a committee I can help her."

Gale pressed her to him, wrapped an arm protectively around her middle, let the man know Madge wasn't as alone as he thought. He was happy to see the old man pale a little, stumble over himself as he took in the woman he'd thought was such an easy picking and the intimidating man letting him know she was anything but.

"Of course, General. I didn't realize Miss Undersee was, ah, with you."

Damn right she is.

As soon as the man scurried off Madge rounded on him.

"Gale!"

She looked mortified, her cheeks bright with color though she hadn't had even a sip of alcohol.

"He was staring right down your dress!" He defended himself. How could she possibly be mad? He was helping her!

"Like you don't stare down girls' dresses all the time," she grumbled.

Do not!

"Fine," he growled back. "Next time I won't help."

Her fingers began rubbing her temples. "It isn't the help-"

"Whatever."

He didn't care. Let her get rubbed on by those dirty old men she was too polite to tell off. Gale wasn't going to ride to her rescue again.

He threw his hands up and left, concentrating on keeping his already confused feet from tangling with each other. When he turned back he saw her furiously storming out.

She was gone.

######################################

The barkeep had eyed him warily when he asked for the strongest stuff they had and to 'keep it coming'.

"She'll come back," the blond barkeeper told him. He looked annoyingly like one of Mellark's brothers.

With a roll of his eyes, Gale turned his glass up, trying to get the last drops from the bottom. What did he know? Madge was the champion of disappearing, she might be half way back to Ten, Nine, Three, by now, who knew?

She hadn't yelled, but then she rarely did. Her eyes had blazed though. She was more annoyed than he'd seen her since the first Games, when he'd been so awful to her…

"She will," the barkeeper told him again. "You didn't have much to worry about, you know? You're a good looking guy, she was just making nice with the old man."

Gale leveled him in his unsteady gaze. What was he talking about?

The man must have noticed his confusion, was probably use to drunks losing track of their conversations with him, because he smiles.

"You're girlfriend. She was just being nice with that guy. You didn't have to mark your territory, he didn't have a chance."

His sluggish mind slowly processed the lost Mellark's words.

"She isn't my girl-girlf-friend." Gale finally manages to stutter out. "And w-what'd'ya mean 'mark my territory'?"

The man laughs even though Gale doesn't see anything funny about the situation.

"Not your girl, huh? Coulda fooled me." He smirks, "You glared every guy down that came within ten feet of her, looked ready to blow an artery when the old man danced with her, then practically hiked your leg and peed on her when he started putting the moves on."

Gale glared at him.

He had not. He'd only been protecting her, helping her.

Madge was his friend, his good friend, his very pretty friend that was too nice to assholes that didn't know their boundries-

"Oh."

The barkeeper gave him a sympathetic smile. "You didn't know, did you?"

Gale shook his head, a bad move, the room began to swim.

He liked Madge.

Of course, he liked her, she was his friend. He wouldn't have spent time with her, worked with her, gotten her back out into the world if he hadn't.

He knew she was pretty, he'd always known that, had appreciated that she was attractive even back in Twelve when he couldn't stand her. He'd never really minded seeing her, with her pretty dresses and ribbons, wide blue eyes and soft curves.

He'd even developed a little crush on her, a mutual flirtation, for the durations of the Games, something he'd squelched out with each reminder of Katniss and his long standing attraction to her.

During the course of the last year and a half he'd grown more affectionate with her. He would admit it, he liked touching her, keeping her close to him. He'd told himself it was for comfort, she had an aura of calm around her constantly, a well practiced façade from years of being hostess to Capitol idiots. Much as he hated to admit it, he needed that tranquility, he possessed none of it himself.

But he likedher. How had that happened?

She traveled with him, helped him to not alienate the morons that permeated the official positions within the government, guided him through the strange new world he was helping to create with her knowledge of the old one. He had the sudden, horrible realization that she was helping him to survive.

He groaned.

The barkeeper chuckled, "She's pretty. She seems to like you, she wouldn't be here otherwise. Why so upset?"

"Because," Gale rubbed his hand over his eyes. This was a disaster.

"Because?"

"Because this happened last time." And it hadn't ended well. He'd fought for Katniss, thought he had the upper hand, might even have had it at some point, but she'd picked Mellark. Maybe because of Gale's bomb, maybe because Mellark was just the better guy, the guy Katniss couldn't survive without.

"Last time?" The barkeeper shrugged, "Well, what's different thistime? Anything?"

There's no other guy fighting me for her attention.

Not really, old men didn't count.

He presses his finger to his eyes, racks his brain.

Madge was quiet, like Katniss had been, though for a different reason. Madge's was learned, controlled, while Katniss' had been stunted, born of the trauma of her father's death and her mother's retreating into her own mind.

Katniss had been the figurehead of the Revolution, made television appearances, grand moments of unfiltered her that spurred the country to fight back. Madge was in the background, not among the puppet masters that had so used Katniss, but not quite beyond their control either. Her moments were small, tiny efforts to make even the smallest of differences in the lives of the people immediately around her. Her true self was always filtered and muted, to protect the ungrateful people of the District who would've been so easily squashed by her misbehavior.

They both had shied away from physical affection. Despite all the kissing he and Katniss had done, though, she wasn't as pliant as Madge. Perhaps because Katniss had Prim she hadn't been as starved for attention as Madge had so clearly been. Before her father's death, he'd been a positive force for Katniss, and her mother had been well then. Madge didn't seem to have benefited from that. Her parents seemed to care for her, but her mother was sick and her father busy. She wasn't a push over, their spat over the sleeping situation made that abundantly clear, but she wantedthe attention so much more than Katniss had.

It made is stomach turn, to realize he'd used her clear need for affection to fulfill his unconscious desire for a physical anchor.

Gale downed another drink. He was too sober for this shit, and he didn't want to be if she didn't come back.

################################

When she turned up next to him, he'd breathed her in, just to make sure she was real. Only Madge smelled like Madge.

He could only remember snatches of the conversation.

"I'm not a possession. You can't just scare off anyone I talk to."

In his drunken state he couldn't process her words as well as he would've liked to, but later he would remember them, try to keep them in mind.

He didn't want to lose her.

Because after several uncounted drinks, before the barkeeper had cut him off, he'd come to the crippling realization that he needed her. Losing her was unthinkable. She'd become the one thing he couldn't survive without.

Vaguely he remembered taking the stairs, a stupid move that had caused Madge to fall, hurt her elbow. Much as he hated the elevator, he would rather brave it than chance knocking her down again.

She'd helped him undress for bed, something he knew most people wouldn't have done, considering his behavior and how much it had upset her. He'd watched her with a grin as she'd unbuttoned and unzipped him, his mind selfishly wondering if he'd ever get the chance to have her help him out of his clothing for a reason other than sleeping.

When she started to pull him to the bed he'd remembered how irritated she'd been and backed away, only to have her tell him to 'just stay on your side and I'll stay on mine'.

Then they'd settled down and she'd turned her back to him. His heart stuttered. He needed to see her, not her back, her. So he'd apologized for making her fall, hoping that would keep her facing him. When she started to turn over again he panicked and remembered her comment about looking down girls' dresses.

"I don't look down girls' dresses."

She seemed confused, but was important she know. His mind tells him she needs to know he isn't looking at other girls. Just her. Only her.

Her response is muddled, he tries to think on it, but he's tired and drunk and only can register that it sounded positive, like she believed him, so he nodded. "Good."

There's nothing left for his mind to formulate, he's exhausted, so he keeps his hand on her. He wants to keep her in his vision for as long as he can, in case she's gone in the morning or this is a dream. She's just so pretty, in her nightgown, with her hair down, and her heavy eyes…

#######################################

Gale woke when his pillow gently nudged him off. Normally it didn't; in fact, he didn't remember any of them ever fighting their way from him.

Sleepy and a little annoyed it was messing up the best night of sleep he'd had in ages, he nuzzled deeper into it, clutched it a little tighter to him. It made an uncomfortable noise.

Why is my pillow so fussy tonight?

"Gale."

Now it was talking to him. He needed to lay off the drinking.

"Gale." It poked him in the shoulder. "Gale, wake up. I…need to use the bathroom."

He craned his head up, squinted into the dark at his talking pillow, which sounded strangely like Madge.

He could see her blue eyes, flickering with the pale light from the security light outside, wide and watching him. Gale flopped his head back down; he didn't need to know that.

"Then go," he shrugged.

Unless she was going to take a shower and needed help with cleaning some hard to reach places he wasn't venturing in there.

He felt himself being heaved over, albeit gently, then his pillow, soft and warm and sweet smelling, slipped away from him. Groaning, he sat up, blinked groggily, and found Madge straightening her nightgown beside the bed.

"I'm going to the bathroom," she told him again, a little more breathlessly this time.

He nodded, watched her back away, then collapsed back down. His pillow wasn't nearly as comfortable now.

Sitting up again he examined the bed and frowned. He didn't remember much from the night before, but he was certain he'd gone to sleep on the other side of the bed.

It took a minute, but the alcohol had mostly worked its way through his system and he was a little more clear headed as he finally piece together why Madge had felt the need to wake and inform him of her need to use the toilet.

"Shit." He runs his hands through his hair, letting them settle on his neck.

Gale really needed to get a handle on his body.

He considered moving back to his side, but decided against it. She might only not be mad because she thought he was still drunk or too tired to know what he was doing. He was torn between being grateful for her graciousness and annoyed that she still was letting a man throw himself, quite literally, at her and still being too well-mannered to tell him off. Even if that man was him.

Blinking, his mind flickered back to when they arrived, how irritated she'd been about the bed. Then she'd gotten angry about what he now recognized as his slightly possessive, somewhat jealous attitude with the old magistrate.

She had told him off. She'd been defensive and stood up to him, even tried to tell him why he'd annoyed her. Albeit in her own, somewhat, he felt, indirect way.

Gale felt a smile slip onto his face

He understood, at least a little, why she was so irritated, so defensive. She didn't need to be rescued.

Madge was a little in need of attention, craved it even, but she wasn't defenseless, he should've remembered that from when she'd punched him. She simply picked her battles more judiciously than he did.

She probably had a better grasp of what was going on than he knew, she was the one teaching him to survive it after all, and that knowledge made him a little easier about her being at the galas and functions.

Madge let him push her boundaries further than anyone else was allowed, but if she wanted to put a stop to it, she would. He could sense that now.

This wouldn't be a repeat of Katniss, he wasn't going to make the same mistakes this time. He and Madge weren't surviving like he and Katniss had, there was no looming threat of death or starvation, no Reaping or Games. They were surviving as people should, he told himself, with the chance of better things ahead, not just a bleak future.

He flopped back down, pulled her pillow to him and inhaled the scent of her hair that still clung to it, proving she was really there. She was just in the bathroom. She would come back.

Not because she was a pushover, too polite to say anything, but because, maybe, probably, he hoped, she wanted to.


	18. Beyond a Lifetime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

When Katy-Jo Lewes had told her about the memorial being built near the stockyards in Ten, Madge had been curious.

It was a garden, filled to the brim with colorful flowers and young trees that she was told would one day grow tall and strong. The cattle cars that had carried the children to the Southern Seat had been dismantled, the sides preserved and erected with the names of the lost Tributes and the handful of Victors carved into them, over the emblems of both District Ten and the Capitol. At the center of the winding path was a field, an area with a clear view of the sky, and at night the constellations.

"We are all like the stars," the Mayor, her golden eyes bright even from the stage, had told them during the dedication, hand sweeping to the darkened heavens. "We may die, we may fade, but we may still guide. Our lost Tributes, our fallen Victors, our passed friends and loved ones, may not be with us, but their light will guide us forward. Even when that light is gone, the memory of it will keep us from ever drifting back to such terrible times."

Gale had tried to look less impressed than he was.

"It's all metaphors and symbolism." He grumbled as he studied the heavy door of an old cattle car, the name 'Tommy Brandsetter' blazoned up it.

"That's all we have sometimes," Madge shrugged. "This District is constantly shifting, moving, they don't get too attached to things, just memories."

It was a District of constant sacrifice for the larger well being, creating memories that haunted them all. The garden was made of those memories, for better or worse. They were embracing them for what they were: lessons in life they needed to take to heart.

"I think more Districts should have memorials to the lost," Madge told Gale as they walked through the dirt streets, back to her apartment.

His mouth turned down, "Why? Just dredge up the past. What good does that do anyone?"

Her arms folded across her stomach protectively. "Our past is important." Her mind flickered to her father, the words he so often told her throughout her life whenever he'd give her a lesson.

"If you don't know your history you keep making the same mistakes."

Gale froze, eyes flickered to her, "Aren't you the one always telling me I need to move on? I can't live in regret."

"Knowing your history and wallowing in it aren't the same thing, Gale."

She takes off again, her pace brisker this time. He jogs and catches up with her, catches her by the elbow.

"Madge," he pulls her to a stop. "I'm sorry. It's just…the past hasn't been all that great to me."

A sigh escapes her lips, her eyes flicker out into the dark, "It hasn't been particularly kind to any of us, Gale."

The past was where her parents were, though. The past, her memories of it, were the only place they still existed. The ghost of her mother's sister, her Poppa, Mrs. Oberst…they were nothing but shadows to the present. Forgotten as insignificant points of light among a brightening morning sky.

Sometimes it felt as though none of them were worth remembering.

Her childhood home, as few truly happy memories as it held, was gone, she'd seen it go up in flames the night of the bombings. Her garden, her room, her back porch…

Often she still thought of herself as nothing but an out of place relic of the past. Someone who didn't belong, who should have died alongside her mother and father, become just another phantom in a painful history lesson.

Gale's mouth droops, his hand comes to a rest on her shoulder, kneading it gently before both his hand are on her cheeks, thumbs sweeping over them. She feels moisture smear under her eyes and realizes she's started crying.

Her head turns quickly and she begins brushing them away. It's stupid to cry over them, it won't do them or her any good.

He grabs her, pulls her to his chest, his calloused hands rubbing circles and tracing patterns on her back, his voice softly murmuring soothing things into her hair. She tries to pull away, but he tightens his hold. Struggling weakly for a few minutes then giving up, Madge wraps her arms around his waist and presses her face into him, inhales the earth and wind that cling to him.

"I know it hasn't." He final says, lips still in her hair.

She can feel his fingers working on her pony tail, pulling the band out so that he can run his finger through her tresses.

Tears fight their way back out the edges of her eyes, trickling out and down her cheeks, soaking Gale's shirt.

He understands…but he doesn't.

He still has his mother, his brothers, his sister, even Katniss and her mother, despite the rift between them, are still solid and real. There's nothing left of her family. Not a single tangible bit of proof that either one of them ever existed, that her aunt, the dead girl that had haunted Madge despite her short, tragic life, had contributed to the Rebellion with her little trinket.

They might not have existed, none of them. Not even Madge herself, except in the flawed memories of the dispersed population of Twelve.

"There's nothing of them. Not a garden or a plaque, not a stone…"

It's ridiculous, none of those things would change their being gone, but having something, somewhere she could go, know existed, where her past wasn't just a fading memory would've eased her aching heart some.

"The whole cemetery is gone," he finally breathes out. "Everyone that ever died there is just…"

Gone.

Madge suddenly feels a little selfish, only thinking of her missing family. Gale, Katniss, Peeta, everyone who'd lived and died in Twelve were without a place to remember their families.

She peers up at him, through her wet lashes, ashamed of herself. "I'm sorry, Gale, I'm-I wasn't thinking. Your dad-"

He pulls back and frowns before dipping down and silencing her with a fierce kiss, picking her up onto her toes, crushing her to him.

They're both breathless when he lets go, pressing his forehead to hers. "I didn't mean it like that."

She nods, hating herself for always assuming he's trying to start something. He seems to sense her irritation with herself and crushes her to him again, resting his cheek against her hair, taking a deep breath.

"I wish there were a memorial, something, for Twelve, too." He sighs, "There just isn't any interest in it. No one goes there and almost no one has gone back. It was hell getting them to even put a hovercraft port there."

It had been considered a waste of money. Just like any memorial would be.

She sighs into him, wishing she were more, wishing she had some power to create something to remind the people of the new country what the little coal mining district had sacrificed for them.

#########################################

When they got to the apartment Madge's roommate was already running out, hastily telling her goodbye. Her latest boyfriend was taking her to the coast and they were leaving early to reach it by morning, giving Madge and Gale rule over the apartment.

Gale found some wine in the fridge. He smirked, hawthorn and strawberry, already opened, but with only a few sips gone.

Madge didn't drink, but she was emotionally exhausted and keyed up, and though she'd never admit it, the memorial had been a strain on her. It bothered her, and that bothered him. He so rarely felt as though he had anything to offer her when she wasn't feeling her best, a few sips might do her some good. Besides, how could she turn down such a combination?

He pours some into a couple of mugs, 'Crazy-Jo Loon' had apparently still not bought any proper cups, and carries them into Madge's room. She's in the bathroom, brushing out her hair, damp from the shower. He feels an inkling of annoyance, she should've waited for him.

They could've saved some water.

Gale watches her for a minute, her neck sways over as she picks out a tangle he'd most likely caused.

He whistles, holding the mugs up.

She comes out, starts to pull her hair up, but he stops her. "I'm just going to take it out."

Her eyes roll, "I know, but it's cold."

He pushes the mug into her hand, "This'll warm you up."

Taking it, she sniffs, mouth turning down, "What is it?"

"Wine."

It's back in his hand. "I don't drink, Gale."

He sighs and sits it on the bedside table before collapsing onto the bed. It's her choice. He takes a long drink of his own. Wine doesn't do much for him, but he won't turn it down.

Madge sits beside him, a little hesitantly, eyeing his cup. She isn't a fan of drinking. He supposes it reminds her of Haymitch, a dependency, even though Gale is far from being a slovenly alcoholic like the crazy old Victor.

After a minute Gale reaches out and runs his hand through her hair, massaging her scalp with the tips of his fingers, and she relaxes slightly.

He sits back on the bed, reclining onto the mass of pillows, pulling her with him and onto his lap, causing her to squeak. His lips press to her neck, then up to the little patch of skin behind her ear as one of his hands snakes its way under her nightgown.

For once, he really isn't trying anything, just enjoys the feeling of her skin against his. His fingers begin tracing circles on her stomach, then absently letters, his name, though he doubts she realizes it.

"What's wrong?"

He feels her shoulders jerk, just a little, and he sighs.

It irritated him when she did that, shrugged off his concern for her. For some reason she didn't think her troubles were worth dealing with, would bottle them up like she had learned to do so long ago.

He wasn't sure if it was a desire, unconscious or not, to avoid adding to his worries or simple disregard for her own worth that made her do it.

He pinches her side, "No, talk."

She rolls over, eyes downcast, then shifts up, begins kissing him, her fingers sneaking up and starting on the buttons of his shirt. It's off and her delicate and cool fingers have begun on his pants when he realizes what she's doing.

"Don't change the subject," he growls into her mouth. She was playing dirty, using his own tricks against him.

With a grunt he rolls over, pinning her under him and grabbing her hands.

"Madge," he frowns.

She brings her legs up and wraps them around his middle, pulls him down and crushes him to her. He can feel the moisture from her shower still clinging to her, permeating through her nightgown.

Not fair.

"I'm serious." He releases her hands, begins stroking her hair again. "Please talk."

Madge's mouth straightens then she bites her lip, looking away. "It's nothing."

"It's not 'nothing'." He nuzzles into her cheek. "I know the memorial thing bothers you, it bothers me too, but there isn't anything-"

"There could be," she flickers her eyes up. "Maybe we could get donations, get help to do something."

Gale had dealt with many of the survivors from Twelve, been a leader of sorts for them, before and after the Rebellion, helped many with the relocation, and none had been as troubled about the lack of recognition their District got as Madge was. District Twelve was nothing but bad memories and death. It was a little upsetting to him, the cemetery being gone, his father's stone bombed to dust, but it was nothing to what Madge seemed to be experiencing.

"How can people just forget them?" She whispers, more to herself than to him.

It finally strikes him how much things have really changed for her.

Madge had been someone, a daughter, the child of a politician. She'd been visible in the District, highly regarded and deeply reviled, whether she deserved it or not, and now she was noticed only occasionally, when she was at galas with Gale. Though he didn't think she missed the attention, in fact she often teased him for how he often had to deal with the fools from the press corps; it had to be a shock to her system, to go from someone of importance to what she must have viewed as no one.

Madge, he realized, was unsure of her own importance in the world.

He doubted she even recognizes for herself what exactly is bothering her. Genuinely, she probably is upset about lack of acknowledgment for everyone and everything sacrificed by Twelve.

Alive or dead, Madge would be less than a footnote when the history books were written. Despite her position as the Mayor's daughter, a supposedly elevated station in life, she and her parents warranted no remembrance.

Gale, though he had been born into nothing, a former miner and a poacher, a convicted criminal in the eyes of the law, was an entire book to himself.

She and everything she'd know had been tossed aside by the new government, something it was prone to do, he'd noticed.

Katniss and Peeta Mellark had been shuttled off, quietly tucked away from the public eye in Twelve, despite being the driving forces, the spark for the Rebellion. They were only referred to in the past tense, never recognized for the broken messes they'd been turned into.

Madge may not have been used in the same way, by the same government, but she'd suffered. She'd been ostracized because of her position, insulted by the people her father had insisted she help protect with her subservience. She'd been lost, left to burn, no attempts to find her had been made.

Despite all the good she, and her father, had done, had tried to do, they were forgotten.

Shewas forgotten.

Gale pressed a kiss into her cheek, trying to think of what to say. Despite her quiet nature, words were Madge's strong suit, not his.

"They aren't," he tells her.

You aren't.

She may not make the history books, may be just a passing line or a cut character in the greater story of the Rebellion, she was going to be a major part of his story, as long as she wanted to be.

He rolls off her, his hand back on her stomach, tracing his name again.

"Maybe," he focuses on the softness of her skin, thinking through his words carefully, "maybe I can, I don't know, write to Paylor, ask her about getting a grant, rebuild the cemetery."

It isn't much, but it's something.

The room is silent, he keeps his eyes on her stomach, fingertips just finishing crossing the 't' on 'Hawthorne' when she grabs his hand. She takes it up to her face, kisses his palm.

"You would do that?" A little crease forms between her eyes. "For me?"

It's a little worrisome to him, that even after all this time she still doesn't know, he would do anything for her. She was ridiculous, not realizing that he loved her enough to ensure that she knew how important she was, maybe not to the world, but to him.

"Madge," he sighed. If she wanted him to call Paylor that minute, he would. "You

know I would."

She blinks, her eyes shimmering with tears he knows she doesn't want to fall. Swallowing thickly, she lets a small smile creep onto her face.

"I think the cemetery would be nice." She nods.

Twelve didn't need a garden or some fancy memorial. They weren't the future, they were the past, but they need to be remembered. They needed to remind those to come what could happen, what could be lost.

"I'll call her in the morning," he tells her. "See what we can do. But don't get your hopes up."

His position didn't promise them anything.

Madge props herself up on her elbows, her smile widens, "How can she turn down a request from the illustrious General Gale Hawthorne?"

His eyes flicker upward, "Very easily, I think."

She lean up, presses a soft kiss to his lips. "Thank you."

Gale's hand trails down her chest, back to her stomach then under her nightgown, already bunched up under her breasts. "I'm making a request of the President. I think I deserve more of a 'thank you' than a kiss."

Her eyebrows rise innocently, "Do you want me to go make some candy? I can use Katy-Jo Lewes' wine to make somet-"

He throws his leg back over her middle, straddling her, covering her mouth with his hand, "Using up the only alcohol in this place isn't exactly a 'thank you'."

Madge is grinning when she pulls his hand down, "Oh? What can I do then?"

A little yelp of surprise erupts out of her when he sits back, pulling her up. He jumps from the bed and throws her over his shoulder, carrying her toward the bathroom.

"Gale, what are you doing?"

She tries to sound annoyed, but she's laughing.

"Going to take a shower."

"I just took a shower."

He jostles her a little, flips her down into his arms, "You're going to thank me properly. I have some very dirty places that need some special attention."

She snorts, "I'll bet you do."

There's no guarantee Gale will get anywhere with the request, but there's always the chance.

Just knowing he still remembers everything she's given up, that he's willing to try to give her something, however unlikely, to cement those sacrifices into the collective memory of the nation, might be enough. He doesn't want it to be, he wants to give her whatever she wants, if he can. For the first time in his life he has something to offer her, and he'll be dammed if he misses the opportunity.


	19. Sweet Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale, Madge found out, had nightmares.

When they first shared a room she'd noticed them. She would hear him occasionally whimper in his sleep or wake to find him sitting up, staring out the window. Sometimes with a bottle of a strong liquor in hand.

"Can't sleep," had been the only thing she'd ever gotten him to tell her.

She had been too afraid to ask, too uncertain of herself and their relationship to bring whatever demons haunted his mind in the darkest part of the night out to talk.

The more time they spent together, though, the less often she found him awake in the middle of the night.

When they started sharing the bed, he started sleeping with her crushed to him like raft in the sea, they diminished even further. Aside from a soft snore, he barely made a noise. Other than to pull her closer, his wandering hands finding their way under her gown, he wasn't all that restless.

They still occurred, she still caught him up in the middle of the night, having startled himself awake, but instead of getting up and pacing the floor, drinking, he simply stayed in bed, focused on the rhythm of her breathing and the sound of her heartbeat, steady and strong, in his ear.

Slowly, as they spent days, weeks together, she would find them vanish almost completely.

Then they would part, her back to her apartment in Ten, to her job with Katy-Jo Lewes, and Gale back to Two, or on a job for the military, and he would start to regress.

He would call her, in the middle of the night, on the ancient phone, just to hear her voice.

"Please. Talk to me."

Madge could hear the desperation in his voice each time he did it.

"About what?" It scared her, hearing him so terrified, his voice breaking.

"It doesn't matter." His voice was low, she would often worry he'd been drinking. "Please, just talk."

So she did. How her day went, what she and Katy-Jo Lewes had planned, the trivialities of her life…

She told him about making candy with her Poppa, hiding under her father's desk at the Justice Building when she was very small, her mother on her good days, Mr. Abernathy playing tea party with her…

"Haymitch Abernathy had a tea party with you?"

Madge could almost hear the smile in his voice.

"Several times. He's very fond of me."

Gale chuckled weakly, "You're the only one."

It went on for years, Gale using the gentle timbre of Madge's voice to calm his nerves. Different stories each call until she heard his breathing slow on the other end or the phone drop to the floor or the bed.

"Sweet dreams, Gale."

Finally, after they'd gotten together, after years of watching him shudder in his sleep or come back to her with dark circles under his eyes, Madge woke to find Gale, clinging to her. His nails, though short, were digging into the skin of her hips where his arms wrapped around her back to them. His face was taught, eyes clenched shut, tears were forcing themselves out the corners.

"Gale." She whispers harshly. "Please, Gale."

When she couldn't stand it any longer, she pinched his shoulder.

He shot up, panic in his stormy eyes, breathing erratically as he surveyed the room.

"Madge?" He looks down at her. "What happened?"

She pushes her gown down, hiding the red marks from his fingers. "You were having a nightmare."

He nods, runs his hand over his face, giving her an apologetic grimace. "Sorry."

With a grunt, Madge heaves herself up, back against the headboard of the bed. She motions for him to come to her. He crawls up the short distance, she almost laughs. He reminds her of a child joining its parents in bed. Unlike a child, though, he collapses between her legs, his face nuzzling into her breasts. He finally settles, his ear to her heart, eyes closing.

"What was it about?" She'd never seen one this bad.

She feels him shrug against her. "I don't remember."

Her fingers begin working through his hair. "No. Please, Gale, tell me."

Madge pushes him back a little, makes him look her in the eyes. His eyes flicker across the room, out the window. She's losing him.

"Gale," she catches his jaw between her hands, leaning forward and giving him a hard kiss before pressing her forehead to his. "I love you. Please tell me."

She's let him go on like this for too long and she suddenly hates herself for it. If only she'd been a little more certain.

He stares at her, his eyes dark and intense. She's certain he isn't going to tell her, and her heart falters just a little.

Then he sits back, pulls her into his lap, cradling her to his chest.

"This time?" She feels him exhale. His breath ruffles her hair.

"Talk to me," she tilts her head back, looks at his tired expression. "Please."

And, for the first time, he does.

Sometimes they're about the mines and District Twelve. His dad dying in them, Gale being in them, Rory taking out tesserae, starving, Thread, sirens going off…

"It's stupid, I know. The mines are long gone, but those are the old dream and they still hit me sometimes."

Then there was the night of the bombing.

"I see my house go up." He tightens his grip on her, "Your house burn…you die."

She starts to tell him it's okay, she still has nightmares about the bombings, but that isn't true. Since she's had Gale in her life, she doesn't remember any.

"Sometimes it's the Nut. Sometimes it's Prim, those kids."

He takes a deep breath, "And sometimes I'm back in the Capitol with the 'Star Squad', Finnick dies, Peeta goes off, Kat-" He catches himself. Warily he casts his eyes down, uncertain if Madge is ready to hear the name of the girl she'd thought herself so inferior to.

Carefully, Madge pushes his chin up, meeting his eyes, "What happens to Katniss?"

Gale looks back out the window, "You know what happened to Katniss."

Madge feels tears well up in her eyes when it hits her. Gale's nightmares aren't nightmares at all. They're just his memories.

His hand comes to her face, she feels it smear warm tears across her cheek. He murmurs, "Don't cry."

Then he kisses her, again and again. Down her neck, to her chest, before she can stop him he's tugging her gown up, then he stops.

"Madge…"

She looks up at him, he'd put her back on the bed at some point, he's sitting back on his feet a look of disgust on his face. She frowns, not really sure what's the matter. Then his rough fingertips ghost over her hips.

Oh.

It's still reddened where his fingers had pressed into her, the marks from his nails are still painfully visible.

"I'm so sorry." His eyes stay focused on the marks, Madge can see the devastation eating him up.

She pushes herself up, catching him around the neck, and pulling him back down with her.

"I'm fine." She kisses him, her hands running through his hair.

"I hurt you," he whispers against her neck.

"I forgive you."

He buries his face against her neck, shaking his head. She feels moisture roll between his face and her skin, down her back. He's crying.

"I was dreaming about the bombing." She feels his chest shudder against her. "Madge, I didn't come back for you."

Oh, Gale.

She knew that. Madge had run off after making sure the evacuation was going smoothly, she'd gone to try and get the Town people out, get her mother, the housekeeper and her family, get them out. She'd failed, though, watched the first of the bombs hit her home, then collapsed down as the fire fell from the sky.

If she hadn't been swept up on the back of the riders from Ten's horses, she would have died.

"Gale, you did exactly what you were supposed to do." She reassures him softly. "You weren't supposed to come back for me."

If he had, Gale would be dead.

That, Madge, realized, would be her nightmare.

He pulls back, his eyes are bloodshot, "I'm sorry, Madge. I-"

She covers his mouth with her hand, gives him a faint smile, "I'm fine."

Better than fine. She was with Gale.

"You don't need it, but I forgive you."

Maybe he needs to hear it, just to calm his mind, let it know that she doesn't blame him for the course their lives took.

Things had worked out just as they needed to. They were both there, both a little broken, but they fit together. Better than they would have whole, Madge is certain of it.

She cranes her neck, brushes her lips across his jaw, rough with dark stubble, and smiles.

He still looks wary, eyes watery and pink, but a small smile creeps up his lips anyway.

She pulls him down, against her. "Let's get some sleep."

Gale sighs, relaxing a little as Madge runs her hands along his back. He presses a kiss to her chest, "Sweet dreams, Madge."

They can talk in the morning, and she'll make sure he knows she could never blame him for how things had gone. His presence kept her nightmares away, and she would find a way to keep his away, somehow.

For now, she'll just hold him. Madge kisses the top of his head, "Sweet dreams, Gale.“


	20. Fairy Tales and Happy Endings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Madge's mother had read her fairy tales when she was very small. They were filled with true loves, brave princes, damsels in distress, and wonderful, loving kisses that could wake sleeping beauties, turn frogs to handsome princes, and keep mermaids on land.

"And they lived happily ever after, love," she would tell her in her always airy voice. True love solved every dilemma, in her mother's versions, there were no problems after the story ended.

Madge loved those stories, but she was a practical child. She lived in a world filled with death and suffering, princes and kisses would do very little to solve the problems of her world.

Her father had told her fairy tales too, but they were less fanciful. Those sleeping princesses could wake without kisses, frogs were changed by being thrown against walls, and mermaids turned to foam in the sea.

It was better to save yourself in those stories. Other people only caused you pain, or were pretty useless.

True love didn't matter and happy endings were in the perspective.

Her mother's versions were the stuff of dreams, foreign fantasies beyond her grasp, and her father's the workings of a grim imagination, but so much more relatable.

Madge was no princess, and if she were she's certain she'd have been the one just unlucky enough to choke on an apple. There were no princes waiting in the wings for her, no knights to fight a dragon and saver her, no curse to be broken or not, no 'happily ever after' in her future.

She was certain of that.

Then the Rebellion happened and that certainty became absolute.

She was battered and useless. No longer a daughter of privilege in the new world, no longer anyone of importance. No longer worth saving.

During long nights she would read through what few library books she could find, remember the happy endings her mother was so fond of. Madge needed the distraction, the blissful impracticality of her mother's stories over her father's, to ease the chill from her soul, make the loneliness of her new life a little more bearable.

It was silly to imagine true love and true love's kiss healing all, but god she wished it were that simple.

When Gale stumbled back into her life, she remembered those stories, wished she were simply a lost princess for him to save. He would scale a tower, fight her demons, kiss her senseless, and they would ride off into the sunset. Happily ever after.

Her life was no fairy tale,though, she was no princess, and she wasn't getting her white knight. She was a fable about appreciating what you had, accepting people's faults, planning ahead. She was a tragedy, a privileged girl who lost everything, a wanderer without a home, the last of a lost class.

She was convinced he didn't even care for her beyond a friend, his heart, his true love, belonged to a girl who was so much more than Madge could ever hope to be. A girl who didn't need to be saved.

So Madge worked to save herself, not to be like Katniss, but to be like the heroines in her father's stories. She wouldn't depend on others, lean on them, they'd only hurt and disappoint her.

Gale belong in another girl's story, she knew that down to her very core. Even if he'd lost out to another prince, a knight in shinier armor on a whiter horse, his true love still rested with her.

As much as she wanted him to love her, she knew he couldn't. She was just a secondary character in his story, a decoy to his tragic love, and she wanted no part in that. No one would chose her when they'd had Katniss in their life. No one would chose her if they had any option in their life.

Then Gale kissed her, said he loved her, chose her.

It wasn't something out of her mother's stories, not by a long shot. He wasn't suave during it, didn't sweep her off her feet, and she didn't let him.

Gale said he did, though, and he sounded so sincere as he breathe 'I love you' against her skin, as if he believed it himself, and Madge wanted to believe it too. She wanted to believe it so badly.

He made her believe it.

Gale held her and kissed her and carried her along with him.

It wasn't perfect, though.

They fought still, had misunderstandings. More than a few times she worried he would give up on her, realize she was too much of a mess for him to want to deal with.

Every time she irritated him with her insecurities or her inabilities she just knew he'd see her for what she was: nothing but a broken little rich girl.

Especially when she did something so stupid.

Madge fought back tears, "I'm sorry."

She'd burned their dinner, for the millionth time. The first few times she'd laughed it off, but she should've had it figured out by now and it frustrated her she hadn't. Meat was just not something she was meant to cook it seemed.

"No," Gale pressed a kiss to her temple. "Don't be sorry. There isn't any reason to be sorry. I'm sure it'll be fine."

He took a bite of the charred remains of what had once been a beautiful steak. It cracked painfully between his teeth. He tried to smile, it came across as a grimace though.

"It's, uh, just a little crispy. Not as much as last time though."

"I ruinedit."

She was a dreadful girlfriend. She couldn't even broil a simple steak. He'd given her step by step instructions and she still hadn't been able to accomplish what he'd assured her was such a simple task.

A shuddering breath shook her.

"Well," he pulled her to him, wrapping her in his warm arms, "it's a good thing I'm not with you for your culinary skills then."

She bit her lip. How could he be so unaffected by this? She'd wasted food. It was a sin in Gale's book. He'd grown up so poor, constantly on the brink of starvation, how could her stupidity not make him want to yell at her? Curse her for being such a careless child of privilege?

A few tears slipped out, down her cheeks and soaking his shirt.

She sniffled. "Why aren't you mad?"

His chest rumbled against her, his deep chuckle vibrating between them. "You didn't mean to burn it, Madge."

"That shouldn't matter." She tried to pull away, she needed to clean up her disaster.

"Why shouldn't it?"

He tangles his fingers in her hair, nestling his nose into her scalp, refusing to let her go.

"Because…" She nearly stops herself, but lets the words spill out anyway. "I keep doing it…and it never mattered before."

When they'd been younger, when she'd still been the Mayor's daughter and he'd been just a miner's son. Her efforts had always merited his scorn then. No matter how well she'd meant, all her tries, her attempts, were met with dark looks and hurtful words. This was no different, just one more of her failed attempt to be useful.

His fingers still, she can almost see him closing his eyes in frustration. She tenses, prepares for the fight.

When he speaks his voice is a little harsh. "Don't hold my mistakes against me."

Madge jerks back, brushing a few wayward tears from her cheeks, nodding. She doesn't wanthim go to be mad at her, but she feels she deserves it. She knows she deserves it.

Gale lets out a long breath, begins twirling a strand of her hair around his index finger.

"We aren't where we were. We aren't who we were." He takes her face between his hands, cupping it and brushing a few more traitorous tears from below her eyes.

She knows that. She's faced with her new reality every time she looked in the mirror. Every time she tries to do something she was never prepared to do in her former life. Domestic skills weren't of any importance to a girl whose life would be consumed, undoubtedly, with playing hostess, smiling and making small talk, with Capitol officials.

She isn't who she was or where she was, but she still wasn't quite prepared for who she was going to be, who she'd have to be, and it was wearing sometimes.

"I'm just such a mess," she mutters, casting her eyes down, focusing on the collar of his shirt, the tiny scar on his neck.

A little smile flickers on his face, "I'm a mess too, you know."

A tiny snort erupts from her lips.

As much as she was never prepared to be a regular girl, domestic, Gale was just as unprepared to be at the forefront of a new government. He'd been taught throughout school he was never meant to be more than a lowly miner, a cog in the machine.

Now he was often the face on the television, though they'd long since realized making speeches wasn't something he should be doing, even with meticulous scripting. He still made the background more often than not. He was camera ready as they came, even if they didn't want him talking. He was too handsome to waste.

They'd switched places somewhere along the way.

Now they needed one another to soften the confusion, to guide the other through the things they were never designed to do, but were having to anyway.

Madge nods, leans forward and presses a chaste kiss to his lips. "Thank you."

She hated it, but she needed the reminder that they were both a little lost in the world every now and then. She accepted his failings as much as he accepted hers.

He dipped back in, trying to make more of it than she'd been prepared for it to be.

"Gale!" She giggled as he nipped at her neck. "We still need to eat."

He signed, "Just eat the jerky."

She huffed and he pulled back, a devious look in his eyes.

"Fine, Posy and my mother said there was this place near the school that has pasta. I provide the dinner and you" a smirk grew on his lips as he trailed his eyes up her body, "pony up dessert."

Madge gave him a light little punch in the shoulder, trying not to smile, sniffling the last of her tears away.

"You are a pervert."

"Maybe, but I'm your pervert."

"Yes", she linked her arm through his tugging him toward the front of the house, away from the smell of burnt meat, "you are, aren't you?"

He was no knight, no prince, and she was no princess, but maybe both her parents' fairy tales held a little bit of truth within their fantasy.

They both had demons to fight, and they'd battle them together. Saving herself wasn't the only option. She and Gale could,would, save each other. From the world and from themselves.

Their happily ever after wasn't perfect, there were still hurdles to jump with their less than white horse, some of their own making, but they were happy. True love's kiss didn't solve all their problems, but it certainly made them easier to work through.

True love did matter and happy endings existed, even if it took some perspective.


	21. Heat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

It's sultry hot, Madge can't even muster the energy to get up from where she's collapsed out on the back porch, sweating buckets. The bugs are the only living things making any noise with their incessant buzzing.

She hears heavy steps coming up the steps.

Sundayshe thinks lazily. Katniss must be there with strawberries for Madge's dad.

She opens an eye drowsily, expecting to see Katniss' somber face, only to find the scowling visage of her companion.

Madge shoots up in a panic, crossing her arms over her chest protectively, she hadn't expected him to come up on the porch, didn't bother with a bra. Normally, Gale stayed back, hung out on the lawn under the tree. She quickly glanced around him.

"Where's Katniss?"

His expression didn't even flicker. "Sick."

"With what?" She hopes it isn't too bad. There'd been a stomach bug running the course through the school just the week before they were let out.

Gale shrugs, holds out a little collection of strawberries.

Madge fights the urge to roll her eyes. Couldn't he even make polite conversation?

"I haven't got all day."

Apparently not.

Sighing, she pushes herself up and stumbles to her feet. Without so much as a glance in his direction, she brushes past him, into the house. He waits outside the door as she stands on her tip toes to reach the coins kept on the top of the icebox to pay for the illegal strawberries.

Her hand finds them, pulls too many out, then she marches back to the door, ready to be rid of her grumpy guest. She drops the coins into his open hand and grabs the strawberries as he turns and leaves without a word of goodbye.

"Nice talking to you," Madge mutters to herself as she watches him go.

He was nice to look at, but he had all the charm of a lump of coal.

She tosses the berries into the sink and heads back to the porch. Just as she's decided to flop down in the swing, she hears the unmistakable sound of loud male voices.

Curious, she creeps around the house, to the side Gale had disappeared to just minutes before, then up to the far corner. Squinting through the shrubs, she sees a group of white uniforms, Peacekeepers, new recruits, fresh from District Two and eager to prove themselves, something hard to do in Twelve.

They're circled around their catch, like vicious animals ready to devour their prey.

Knowing there's little she can do, but wanting to do something anyway, Madge plucks up her courage and steps out of the bushes, rushing over to whatever poor soul the men have cornered.

They don't even notice her until she's behind them, clearing her throat.

"May I ask what's going on here?"

The tallest, probably the leader of the little band, turns to her, eyes her up and down, grinning.

"None of your business."

Madge narrows her eyes, "I'm the Mayor's daughter and you're in my front yard. It's my father's business and if you don't tell me I'll go get him."

She would too. Her chin rises defiantly.

He sneers. "Fine." He reaches and pulls their catch forward, "Caught a poacher."

Gale, jaw set and eyes focusing on the ground, stands tall in front of her. His hair is a little mussed and his shirt more wrinkled, but he isn't bleeding, so they hadn't done their worst. Not yet anyway.

Madge thinks quickly.

"What makes you think he's a poacher?"

She already knows the answer, she'd seen the game bag on his side, which was now clutched in the hand of a pimply faced boy to Gale's left.

"He's got a bag of animals." The tall Peacekeeper tells her, mouth still turned up in a cold smile. "Caught him red handed with Capitol property."

Madge rolls her eyes and snatches the bag from the boy, opening it and looking inside.

"Vermin." She closes it and shakes her head, fighting off a gag at the sight of dead rabbits and squirrels. "I see nothing but vermin."

The Peacekeeper tries to take the bag back, but Madge quickly puts it behind her back.

"These rabbits were eating my garden and the squirrels were in our attic. Gale," she motions to him, "was kind enough to get rid of them for me. He isn't a poacher, he's an exterminator." She crosses her arms over her chest, hiding a flinch as the bag knocks against her side. "I told him to get rid of the awful things because I didn't want them in our yard, even dead."

The Peacekeepers exchange quiet looks of confusion, not sure if they should believe her.

Madge straightens her stance, narrows her eyes, challenging them to doubt her. Finally, they seem to decide there's enough plausibility to her story for it to be true, give Gale a little shove, knocking him into her and nearly causing her to drop his bag.

His hands catch on her shoulders and the perspiration that had soaked through his shirt wets the end of her nose when it bumps into his chest.

She jumps back and gives the Peacekeepers, already skulking off, a flat look.

Once they're gone she looks back to Gale and hands him his bag. "Here. There are new Peacekeepers, they'll be pains for a while, so be careful."

He doesn't say anything, just stares at her.

"Um, okay, well, 'bye."

She starts off, ready to resume her lazy day, when she hears his voice.

"Thanks."

It takes a second, but she turns around. It's the nicest thing he's ever said to her and she can't keep herself from seeing what a thankful Gale Hawthorne looks like.

"You're welcome."

She turns again, but he stops her.

"Hey, Undersee."

Madge turns back, uncertain what more he could possibly want to say to her. They were ending on such a high note.

"You should, uh," he smirks, waving his free hand at her chest, "probably start wearing a bra."

Her arms immediately cross over her chest, she'd completely forgotten. Face burning, but not from the blazing summer sun, she nods.

"Thanks."

He looks ready to burst into laughter. "You're welcome."

When she gets back to her porch she's sweating buckets, but it's no longer from the heat.


	22. Heat, pt 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale could feel the sweat dripping from the back of his too long hair, down his neck, soaking his shirt uncomfortably as he walked down the road.

He shouldn't even be out. His catch the day before, even without Katniss, had been plenty for a few more meals and he'd made enough off his sales to buy his brothers and sister some ice cream.

His mistake had been recounting his near arrest by the excitable new Peacekeepers to his mother. It had all gone well until he mentioned Undersee's near transparent shirt.

"She went red as those strawberries when I told her."

His mother had frowned at his laughter.

"Gale, honey, why would you embarrass the poor girl when she'd just helped you?"

At the time it had just been to see a look on her face that wasn't forced or annoyed, but now he wasn't so sure. He shrugged.

His mother's disappointment in him was so heavy that he'd gotten up early and headed out to the meadow, picked several dozen of the brightest flowers he could find, and wrapped them in twine. It's what his father had done when he was apologizing to his mother. If it worked with a full sized woman surely it would work on Undersee? Thirteen year old girls were closer to being grown women than children he supposed.

He was sopping wet with sweat and a little bit of anxiety, though he wasn't sure why, when he finally reached the back gate of the Mayor's house. Taking a breath, he jumped the fence and jogged up to the back door.

After he knocked he began praying the Mayor didn't answer the door, Gale would look a little stupid standing there with a bunch of flowers if he did.

To his great relief, an old woman, probably the housekeeper, opened the door. Gale didn't even get a word out, ask if Madge was home, when she eyed him up and down with great disgust.

"She would attract filth, wouldn't she?"

Before can say anything in his own defense, she turns and yells.

"Girl! Get down here! You have a boy at the door!"

She slams the door in his face, which he takes to mean 'wait here a minute', and stomps off. A few minutes later, the door cracks open and a pair of bleary pale blue eyes peak out at him. They widen in surprise, as though she'd thought the old woman was lying to her. She opens the door wider.

Undersee is in her nightgown, but she had the good sense to put on a robe to answer the door. Still, her arms cross over her chest protectively.

"Can I help you?"

She's all professional, just like she'd been with the Peacekeepers the day before. Her little jaw is set and her eyes are serious, focused. Some of her bravado is lost, though, when Gale looks at her magnificent bed head.

He starts to tell her 'nice hair', but catches himself, he's already looked at her boobs, however accidental, he doesn't need to add insulting her hair to his list of crimes.

Gale thrusts the flowers out to her. "Here."

She stares at them dumbly so he gives them a little shake.

Her lip puckers in a frown. "What's this?"

His eyebrows rise. "Flowers." Hasn't she ever seen a bouquet before?

Undersee huffs, "I can see that."

Well then why did you ask?

"Why are you giving me flowers?" She narrows her eyes in suspicion.

Gale run his hand over his face, through his soaking hair, letting it come to a rest on his neck, "'Cause you helped me out yesterday, with those Peacekeepers."

She had been pretty brilliant. He wouldn't even deny that. It wouldn't have occurred to him to say what she had.

"You're not too stupid, Undersee." He grits his teeth, "And I'm sorry I looks at your boobs."

Even though that really wasn't his fault, and, actually, she should thank him for warning her. There are a lot of creeps out there.

Her mouth twitches, she's fighting off a smile. Her hand reaches out and takes the flowers from him, her fingers are cool when they brush his.

She puts them to her face, he isn't sure why, they don't really have a scent, but she smiles as though they did.

He's about to take a step back, he's made his peace with her, when she bobs up, on her toes and leans into him. He feels something soft and warm on his cheek, pressing to it feather light for half a second, then vanishing as Undersee drops back to her heels, smiling softly at him.

"Thanks."

Gale nods, grunting a 'you're welcome' before backing away, tripping a little down the stairs, then hopping the fence again.

His shirt is still sticking to him unpleasantly, but he doesn't really care anymore.


	23. Monsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Three, it was decided, was going to be the first of many that was to receive a library, a place where the generations to come would be able to learn about the mistakes of the past, learn, and, hopefully, mold their minds to create an even better world. Writing letters and asking for donations for the Committee to Restore Culture to the Districts, the group in charge of the library, turned out to be just the thing for Madge, to help her feel like she was contributing to the new country's future.

"You've done some wonderful work," one of the committee members, old Ms. Lampasas, a broad shouldered woman with dark eyes and pale hair from Nine had told her after Madge had helped put together a presentation that was to be brought to the funding board. "You should consider joining one of the local committees. You're father was a Mayor, yes? You clearly have an aptitude for it."

Madge had no desire to be in the government, volunteering to ask for donations to help the battered Districts regain some of their identities through restoration was one thing, being a full time committee member was another.

"I'm happy as I am now," Madge told her. She didn't want to follow in her father's footsteps, no matter how much good he'd tried to accomplish, it was a new world, and Madge wanted to forge her own path, and she was certain it didn't involve a full time job with the new Panem government. She wanted the chance not to have her past completely dictate her future, just like Gale was attempting to do.

"Madge Undersee?"

An ashen skinned man with dark rimmed glasses, a little jumpy, looked expectantly at her as she finished gathering up her purse and coat.

He was familiar, she had the feeling she should know him somehow.

His hand jutted out, "I'm Beetee Latier."

Uncertainly, Madge took his hand.

Beetee?

Madge frowned. She knew that name.

Beetee, the former Victor, the man that had encouraged Gale's anger, had helped conceive the design for the bomb that was ultimately used against the Capitol, resulted in so much devastation. The bomb that had killed Prim. The bomb Gale still woke up at night in a cold sweat over.

Interestingly, he was more frayed than she remembered him being from during the last Game. Clearly the post-Capitol life was wearing on him. Gale hadn't spoken to the man since the end of the Rebellion, but had mentioned he knew he'd been given a position in the new government's Research and Development Department, creatinggoodthings, safe things, things that would make life better for the people in the new country they were creating. It didn't matter to Madge though, he had helped damage Gale, and for that she didn't think any amount of new gadgets, however amazing and helpful, would ever clear his name in her mind.

Not that it mattered.

Madge offered him a perfunctory smile, eyeing him warily. He's fidgety, anxious, like he isn't use to talking to people, maybe he isn't, she doesn't know what 'Research and Development' really does.

"How may I help you, Mr. Latier?"

His brow creased a little as his hand dropped back to his side.

"I, uh, I've been following the committee," he takes his glasses off and begins cleaning them. "What you're doing, building the library, it's a good thing, a very good thing." He puts his glasses back on, gives her a faint smile, "I wanted, if it's possible, to maybe help."

She presses her lips into a thin line. Really, she didn't want his help.

Though Gale insisted he'd been the main force behind the idea, the bomb, he would never blame anyone but himself for all the pain and suffering it had caused, Madge still viewed the former Victor as culpable. He'd encouraged a nineteen year old, a man who'd been forced to grow up far too fast and under terrible circumstances, to dig into the darkest part of his mind and devise something so awful, so against what she knew to be his better nature, that it still haunted him, and probably would for the rest of his life.

Beetee, Madge felt, deserved every ounce of blame she could heap upon him.

She didn't want his bloodied hands near the library.

As he stood there, looking frazzled and uncertain, though, she saw a glimmer of humanity in him. She scolded herself, he'd been no more than eighteen himself when he'd been sent to his certain death by the very people he'd made that bomb to be used against.

She forces herself to nod. He isn't a monster anymore than Gale is, he's a victim too, she keeps telling herself.

"Oh, yes, of course." She tucks a stray hair behind her ear and looks around. "Ms. Lampasas would be the one to talk to-"

He shakes his head, "No-I-can't I deal with you?"

"Why?" It sounds rude, even though she doesn't mean it that way. She doesn't understand why he would want to deal with a volunteer over a committee member.

Beetee's eyes flickering down. "You're friends with Gale Hawthorne, aren't you?"

Ah. That's why he knew her name. Maybe he thinks it'll be easier to communicate with someone he has even the most tangential of connections with.

Madge nods, feeling her cheeks flush, she and Gale are a bit more than friends.

Swallowing thickly, he thinks through his words.

"I don't know if he's mentioned me-"

"He has."

She says it too quick, too sharply, lets the disdain she feels for him and what he'd helped do to Gale, scratch out in her tone, in the sudden coolness of it, and he flinches, takes a step back.

"Oh," he keeps his eyes trained on the ground. "I see."

He's a victim too, she reminds herself again.

"Mr. Latier, I think you'd be better off talking to Ms. Lampasas-"

"Please," his eyes widen. "I-I know you probably don't think very well of me. Honestly, I don't think very well of myself most days." He takes a deep breath, "I-I've made a lot of mistakes, I know that, but I'm trying to make up for them. I was hoping, being a friend of Gale's, you might understand a little better."

Madge sighs and repeats to herself, he's a victim, not a monster.

#######

She takes him to a little café, they get coffee, he fidgets the entire time.

"Thank you, for talking with me." He tells her after a few silent minutes of coffee sipping. "People always ask so many questions of us. They expect us to be…I don't know, different than we are. They don't understand what we've been through."

There are so few of them, a dying breed, former Victors. Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch are in Twelve, mostly forgotten, the discarded waste of the Rebellion. It turns Madge's stomach that the people that had used them up forgot them so quickly.

The other remaining Victors were recluses, with the exception of Enobaria. It was easy to imagine people expecting certain things of them they simply couldn't deliver, just as they always had.

Madge takes a sip of her coffee, "No one can."

She can't. She really doesn't see why he thinks she could.

"Gale can." Beetee tells her, "He understood what was going on, what needed to be done. What we were up agai-"

"No he didn't." She cuts him off, her eyes darkening.

He's a victim, not a monster. She tells herself, but she doesn't care.

Gale wasn't like the Victors. He hadn't been forced to kill in an arena for entertainment, he'd been goaded into it by people who should've known better, people in charge that should've known that revenge over justice was a path that left too many broken people in its wake.

Madge gets up, grabs her coat and purse, she won't stay there and let this man tell her that Gale was like him. He wasn't. Gale knew what he'd done was wrong, that those designs, all their plans, were twisted and cruel. Beetee clearly didn't.

He catches her by the wrist, his eyes wide and pleading. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean-not that-"

She jerks away and heads off with him trailing after her.

"Miss Undersee, please," he begs. "What I meant is that-"

Madge take off running, she's in better shape than he is, he won't catch up. He certainly tries though.

She's outpaced him by nearly a block when she hears a yelp. Turning, she sees he's fallen, tripped over his overcoat. Against her better judgment, she jogs back.

"Are you alright?" She carefully gets down and checks on him, he's out of breath, huffing and puffing as much as Mr. Abernathy did back when he, Katniss, and Peeta were training before the Quarter Quell.

He winces as she offers him her arm, pulling him up.

"Thank you," he manages to sputter.

Nodding her acknowledgment, Madge turns to leave once he catches his breath, he's fine, she can leave him with a clear conscience now.

"Miss Undersee, please," he catches her wrist. "I only meant Gale can appreciate our mindset. We did horrible things, things we thought were the only option at the time. I won't even try to defend our design for that bomb, the one that killed Katniss' sister." He lets go of her wrist. "We were lost our humanity, and we'll spend the rest of our lives trying to get it back."

Talking is obviously not his area of expertise, but Madge thinks he's pinned words on his thoughts beautifully.

"Working in Research and Development I build things, but not always things that will be accessible to everyone. I want to help with the library. It's something constructive, something that will benefit everyone, not just this group or that group." He takes his glasses off again, they're a little crooked from his tumble. "Does that make any sense?"

It does. It sounds so painfully like Gale, trying to make up for all his past failings, that she can see why the two had gotten on so well. Even if they'd been horrible influences on one another.

Madge takes a breath. Beetee is a victim, not a monster.

"They've discussed putting the card catalogs on computers. Before the Dark Days that's how they'd been. It'll make more room for the books." She gives him a small smile, "They've about scrapped it because we don't know if we'll get the funding to make it, and quite honestly, no one would even know howto make it."

Beetee's face lights up, "I can do it! Funding won't be a problem, Miss Undersee."

He shakes her hand, delight etched across his face, in his crooked smile.

"Thank you," he says again.

They walk back to the café, they'd left without paying and Madge has to meet Rory to get a ride back to his family's house where she's staying until her flight leaves back to Ten in the morning.

Beetee finishes telling her about his preliminary plans for the catalog, his mind is whirling in excitement. Madge is going to pass it on to Ms. Lampasas, a task she dreads, he's already confused her but she smiles anyway. She feels like she's made his day. Ms. Lampasas will just have to accept Madge's poor interpretation of his design.

He pauses, gives her a weary glance, as though he isn't certain what he's going to say is a good idea. There's an underlying need, though, and he takes a breath.

"How-how is Gale?"

His glasses are still a little askew, making him look a bit like a small child asking about a favorite playmate. Madge wonders how long he's been waiting to ask.

She feels her lips sneak up, takes her lower one between her teeth as she ponders Gale, "He's doing well. Doing good."

Beetee's mouth turns up, "Oh?" He pushes his glasses up his nose, squints at her, as if seeing her for the first time. He smiles, "Oh, I see."

Her heart speeds up.

"I'll make sure to send the preliminary work up on the catalog to you, and thank you, again, Miss Undersee. I won't disappoint you."

#######

Madge pressed herself further into Gale's chest as they swayed on the dance floor of the reception area at the library. It was chilly out, and she was attempting to leach every ounce of heat from his body she could. He took this as a sign he was free to let his hands roam free across her back, impractically bare in the dress.

She really didn't need to let Gale have input on her dresses anymore.

"I'm really proud of you," Gale whispered against her neck, his lips brushing against her skin. A chill shot up her spine and down her arms, out her fingertips at the contact. He chuckled. "If you're that cold we should go back to the room. I can warm you up better there."

I'm sure you could.

She shot him an annoyed look up through her lashes that only made him laugh more.

The palm of his hand, warm and rough, pressed into the lowest part of her back. His fingertips had started tracing lazy patterns across her skin when someone cleared their throat.

"Gale?"

Gale pulled back from her, his face deeply etched with irritation as he turned to see who had interrupted his dance.

His expression switched to confusion when his eyes fell on Beetee.

The man put his hand out, "Good to see you again, Gale."

For a moment Gale just stares. Madge had told him about Beetee's involvement in the library, but neither one of them expected him to show up to the opening. Finally, he takes Beetee's hand.

"Yeah, good to see you."

Whether it really was, Madge didn't know. Gale had only said the man would do a 'good job' after she'd mentioned him.

"You, uh, you met Madge," Gale gestured to her, his hand finding its way around her back and to hip.

Beetee nods to her, a little nervous, "Of course, nice to see you again, Miss Undersee."

Madge gives him her brightest smile, "Nice to see you too, Mr. Latier."

Gale's thumb rubs nervously at Madge's hip. She watches his throat bob as he swallows thickly.

"I've heard about the hover ports," Beetee begins nervously. "It's great, really great."

A tiny smile flickers across Gale's face. "Thanks." He waves his hand, up at the library, "This is pretty great too."

Beetee glances at Madge, "I didn't do much. I'm just glad your lovely friend let me be a part of it."

Gale laughs, deep and rich, rumbling as he pulls Madge a little closer, "She's a good judge of character."

Madge rolls her eyes at him.

The thumb rubbing at her hip slows, she can see him relaxing. His smile widens, more genuine, "Do you want to sit at our table? Catch up?"

Madge almost protests, her wariness of the man flaring up, then he smiles. She sees the humanity he's fighting to regain.

He's like Gale, he's a victim, not a monster. He deserves a chance for his past not to control his future, and Madge won't be the one to deny him that.


	24. Sugar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale's father had promised him he would help him with the snares. So, when Sunday morning rolled around, he bound into his parents' room and jumped between them in the bed.

"Get up!"

"Gale!" His mother whispered harshly, "Not so loud. You'll wake the baby."

He cringed. He'd forgotten about Rory.

The baby stirred in his basket, made a few creaking noises, but mercifully stayed asleep.

His father put his pillow over his head. "Just a little bit longer."

Gale flopped on him, "Please, dad, please. You promised."

It was eight in the morning, they were wasting daylight.

Finally, after an hour of waking his father again and again, Gale finally managed to get him out of bed. His mother made them a small breakfast of the last of rabbit from the week before, then packed them some bread and cheese for lunch, before they ambled out the door.

Gale bounced along, eager to start the day.

#######

He was less eager when the day was ending.

His feet drug along the pavement as he followed his father through the backside of the merchants' stores, peddling what he could to the ones he knew would buy.

His father was finishing with the cobbler, he was bargaining over several pelts, when Gale let his eyes wander. Immediately, they caught on a flash of color in the dull alley.

A ball, red with a stripe, flew up, over the tops of the dumpsters, then back down again, before flying up again.

Curious, Gale backed away from his father, still deep in discussion with the cobbler, and crept over to where the ball was coming from.

A little girl, smaller than him, blonde headed in a blue dress, covered from top to bottom in white powder, though someone had taken the time to wipe her face clean, was throwing the ball as high as she could and catching it over and over again. It took several tosses before she felt eyes on her.

She'd already thrown the ball up, it had just left her hands, when she looked over at Gale. Her mouth formed a little 'o' in surprise before turning down, her eyes widened, panicked, and she darted off, back into the store. The ball came crashing back down, hitting the empty space she'd been in, then bouncing and rolling to the center of the alley, into a puddle.

Gale felt a hand on his shoulder, turning to find his father frowning.

"Scares easily, doesn't she?"

His father walked to the puddle and picked up the ball, drying it on his shirt, then striding up to the door the girl had run in to.

A minute after he knocked, an old man in chipped glasses came out, wiping his hands on his apron. The tantalizing smell of chocolate, a treat Gale had only had once that he remembered, wafted out after him. His bushy eyebrow arched and he smiled brightly. "Ah, can I help you?"

Gale's father smiled and held the ball up, "Your girl left this."

The old man squinted, pushed his glasses up his nose, and smiled before catching sight of Gale. When he did, his smile faltered.

"I see." He waved his hand at Gale, "Some boys took her other one, just the other week, so she's a little…"

The old man shrugged, made a vague gesture with his hand. What that meant, Gale didn't know.

Gale's father frowned, "Boys from the Seam or boys from Town?"

The old man, his name tag is for the sweet shop and says Herschel, smiled sadly, "Does it matter?"

Judging by the way his father's brow creased, it mattered to him.

When Herschel from the sweet shop disappeared back into the store to find the girl, Gale's father held the ball out to Gale.

"You scared her, you give it back."

Gale scowled, "I didn't mean to scare her!"

His father smiled, tossed the ball up and caught it. "Doesn't matter what you meant to do, what matters is what she thought." He took Gale's hand and put the ball in it, "It takes many good actions to erase just one bad one. Unfortunately, you aren't trying to erase your own bad actions, just people like you."

That made absolutely no sense to Gale, that he was having to give some stupid girl her stupid ball back because of what other boys had done, but he held onto the ball anyway, resigned to his fate. He hoped she didn't try to kiss him. Girls did weird things like that when you were nice to them.

When she appeared, just as powder covered as she had been, trying to hid behind Herschel the candy man, Gale thrust the ball out.

"Here."

She must've been a little slow, at least that's what Gale thought, because she just stared at the ball, then to Herschel, then back to the ball. Finally, Herschel prompted her.

"Take the ball, Madge. Thank the nice boy."

Madge blinked, eyes flickered from the ball to Gale, then snatched it from him, as if she thought he might try to pull it back. She ducked back behind Herschel, peaking out just enough of her little blonde head to look between Gale and his father with her wide pale eyes and murmur, "Thank you."

Gale's father gave her his brightest smile, the one he usually reserved for Gale when he got his snare right on the first try, "You're very welcome little lady."

He shot Gale a look.

"You're welcome," Gale muttered.

Herschel the candy man gave Madge a little nudge back toward the smell of chocolate, giving Gale and his father a quick smile, which they took to mean they were done there.

He and his father had turned, were several yards off, when a tiny voice called out to them.

Madge came running toward them.

She's going to kiss me! Gale was prepared for this. His father had warned him about the magnetic charm of the men in their family…

She skidded to a stop in front of them and thrust a paper sack she'd been clutching in her little hands into Gale's chest.

"Poppa say give'is you."

Then she took off, didn't even try to kiss him, just ran back down to old Herschel waiting in the doorway.

Gale frowned, opened the sack and found several clumps of something brown.

"Fudge." His father clarified.

"Why did they give me fudge?" His nose wrinkled.

His father smiled, "Maybe he's making up for something too."

Gale could imagine a thousand things someone from Town could be making up for, and it would take a lot of fudge to make those amends. Did making amends for something you hadn't done make something charity? He stopped, "Should I take it back?"

There's a boom of laughter, "Gale, when a pretty girl gives you candy, you don't take it back."

Gale wrinkled his nose, "Ugh!"

"You didn't think she was pretty?"

"No." He answered, a little too quickly.

"You looked awfully scared when she came running to us. Did you think she was scary?"

Hardly. "I thought she was gonna kiss me."

His father laughed again. "Is that why you look so disappointed with the fudge? You want to go back, get a kiss instead? Or maybe give her one?"

Gale huffed, his father had lost his mind. Of course he didn't want her to kiss him. "She's all dirty." Who knows what that white stuff was.

"I think it was powdered sugar," he smirked. "Make a kiss that much sweeter."

Gale stopped, rolled his eyes, "You are so weird."

"You think that now," his father chuckled, "but in a few years…"

I'll believe it when it happens.

#######

Madge was covered in powdered sugar. Gale could see it in her hair, across her cheeks in a pale blush where she'd attempted to wipe it, at the tip of her nose, along her arms, and, most tantalizingly, across her chest, down past the point where her shirt dipped to a 'v'.

"Did you have an accident?"

She wrinkles her nose.

"Well, I was making fudge and I had the powdered sugar out, and I thought I'd closed it, but when I went to put it up…" She waves at her hands at herself. The mess spoke for itself.

"I can't leave you alone for five minutes, can I?" He smirks. He'd just run down to his truck to grab his papers for work, it had been less than five minutes.

Madge sighs, begins dusting herself off, "If Katy-Jo Lewes would just let me put it in containe-"

Gale cuts her off, kissing the traces of the sweet powder off her lips. His mouth trails to her neck, then chest, smearing the powder on his own face as he went.

"You're making us both sticky," she murmurs.

So?

He makes a needful noise in the back of his throat.

His father had almost been right, the kisses were sweeter, but Gale was positive it was the girl covered in the powder that made them so, rather than the confectioners' sugar.


	25. Pretty Dress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale watched Madge adjusting the top of her dress, examine her makeup and hair in the mirror, make a face, sigh.

Madge no longer had pretty dresses and frilly bras that he could just catch glimpses of as the straps slipped down her shoulders. Thinking back, he realizes her dresses were never as extravagant as he'd thought them to be. They were practically simple compared to the ones she and the other women wore to the galas.

Now she borrowed dresses from her roommate, but seemed to have no desire to buy her own.

"I look so…"

Beautiful? He thought, though he didn't say it. Gale wasn't certain they were to the point in their friendship where he could tell her she looked like every man's fantasy without sounding like some kind of creep.

She was beautiful, though, gorgeous. He hadn't let himself realize it until she'd gotten so mad at him over being a tadover protective, a smidge possessive of her.

Now it ate at his mind whenever he saw her. He needed her in his life, couldn't face losing her like he'd lost Katniss. When they went places he held himself in check, tried to let her lead her own way. She could take care of herself, she wasn't weak, not a pushover.

But god she was beautiful. Even if she didn't know it.

"I look so…" She looks over at him. "Pasty."

He snorts, "Pasty?"

Madge nods, "Especially next to you. I look like I'm sick."

She was pale, was normally, but especially so in winter. Her golden hair and pale blue eyes only served to lighten her.

Gale can't stop himself, he reaches out and brushes a few loose strands of hair from her shoulder and rests his olive colored hand on her shoulder. His thumb rubs against the softness of skin and hand itches to run over the top of her bare back. She shivers and he sees her eyes flicker over to him.

"You look fine."

More than fine.

"This color is bad for me."

Gale rolled his eyes.

"That color is fine on you."

She's being too critical of herself, inspecting every angle too closely. Her nose wrinkles.

"No. It washes me out." She smoothes her hands over her stomach. "It looks like…"

Her head shakes and she turns back to her suitcase, pulling another dress out. She looks back at her reflection in the mirror, shakes her head again.

He catches her around the middle before she can disappear back into the bathroom and change out of her perfectly fine dress.

"Stop," he pulls her to him, enjoying the heat from her body as it radiates into his chest. He turns her back to the mirror, takes her chin and makes her look at herself. "What the hell is wrong with this dress?"

Personally, Gale likes it. It's soft, the neck line is low enough for him to enjoy up close, but not so much that all the men at the party will get an eyeful, her neck and shoulders are bare, but her lower back is covered, making his temptation to run his hands on her skin a little less. He doesn't see what the color has to do with anything.

Madge's lip puckers out, "Doesn't it remind you of anything?"

Huffing, Gale looks at the mirror, tries to figure out what her dress could possibly remind her of. He shakes his head. "I don't know."

A crease forms between her eyes and she looks down, picks at her nails and mumbles something.

Gale lets his chin come to a rest on her shoulder, "What?"

Her body stiffens for a moment, Gale watches her eyes flicker over her dress in the mirror, then look at his reflection.

"It…reminds me of my Reaping Day dress."

Frowning, Gale straightens up, turns her to him.

The dress is a similar color, has a similar length, but he doesn't see anything beyond that. Unless he was completely oblivious, her Reaping dress hadn't exposed her shoulders and neck, hadn't dipped in the front, or been made of such a tantalizingly material.

He shakes his head, "I don't really see it."

Her expression is pained, "Like you even remember my dress, Gale."

It had been a very pretty dress, he remembers that. He remembers thinking how expensive it probably was, how much money he could get for it at the Hob, how impractical it was, how he'd thought she was spoiled for having it.

She hadbeen pretty in it though. Now that he thinks about it, she was beautiful even back then, he'd just been so caught up in his anger and resentment he hadn't let himself truly appreciate it.

"I remember it," he shrugs. "It was a pretty dress and so is this one."

Madge turns back to the mirror. "No. It was expensive and it was stupid to wear a white dress in a coal mining district. This dress…it's too similar."

She starts to take off again, but he catches her by the wrist. He gives her a tug toward the bed and pulls her to sit next to him.

He shifts, turns to look at her. She's staring at her hands, keeping carefully still. Gale reaches out and brushes the loose strands from her shoulder again before running his rough hand across the top of her back, letting it come to a rest at her neck. He gently kneads the muscle at the junction, hoping she'll relax a little.

"Madge, you look great in it." She would look amazing in a bag, not that he would encourage her to go out in one, maybe just in the room…

"I-I just don't want to…" Her eyes flicker to him, "I don't want to have reminders of that. Of the bad stuff." Madge's lips press together, "Sometimes, I see things and it makes me remember how things were and how wewere and…"

She doesn't want to be like that. He can see it in the shine of her eyes and the defeated droop of her shoulders.

Gale suddenly remembers his scornful tones, his hateful glares, the cold way he'd always treated her.

He can understand why she wouldn't want even the slightest reminder of how badly he'd been toward her. It was all ugly feelings. She'd never deserved his cruelty, but she'd taken his barbs and tossed them back, masking any pain with a forced smile.

They weren't those people anymore, they were friends, and she was letting him know, whether she realized it or not, just how much all the words he'd thrown her way had really affected her.

Before he can stop himself, Gale pulls her to him, lets himself have the luxury of her hair in his face and her warmth under both his calloused hands. He squeezes her tightly.

"I'm sorry I was such an ass to you." He's said it before and he's probably going to say it again. His attitude toward her was just one more in his list of sins he'd spend a lifetime making up for.

Her head shakes in his chest, "That's not what I meant."

She tries to pull back, but Gale's enjoying her closeness too much and keeps her in place. A little giggle bubble out of her and she wraps her arms around him.

"I-when I wore that dress, I always felt like such an outsider. Like I belonged even less than I normally did."

He remembers her constantly wearing her plain school uniform most days. Her other clothes were remarkably dull too, not the things he expected of the Mayor's only child. She always had the look of someone trying not to stand out, not blend in, but not distinguish themselves. Now he knew for a fact she had been.

She had been an outsider, a cloistered child with too much scorn thrown her way simply for existing. Gale had been one of those throwing that scorn, and now he knew just how much his thoughtlessness affected people.

"I was terrible to you. I helped make you feel that way."

She starts to protest, but he stops her. He'd helped add to her misery, her exclusion, and he was going to help fix it.

"You were beautiful in that dress, whether it was expensive or white or whatever, and you're beautiful in this dress."

"But-"

"No, you're beautiful." God it feels good to tell her, to say it out loud, say it to her.

She manages to tilt her head up to look at him. A little smile creeps up her face. "You think I'm beautiful?"

He'd just said that hadn't he? He didn't mind saying it again though. "Yeah, you're beautiful."

Madge tucks her head down, into his chest, and murmurs, "Thanks."

Why she feels the need to thank him for pointing out something that was painfully obvious he didn't know, but if it won him a few more minutes of pressing closely to her, he'd take it.

After too short a time, she pulls back and he lets her. Her smile is bright as she looks down at the dress again.

"You really think it's okay? I'm not too pasty? It isn't too like my Reaping dress?"

Her old dress might've helped to ostracize her, but no one in their right mind would turn her away looking as she did now, with her bright smile and soft voice. Definitely not Gale.

Gale nods, "You're beautiful." He would say it a thousand times until she believed it.

Pretty dress or not, she was beautiful.


	26. Just Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Madge carries a tray to the table, several coffees, all black, no sugar, no cream.

"Thank you, young lady," Jefferson grins.

The other wranglers all murmur similar sentiments.

They were in from a long drive, moving a herd from the northern tip of District Ten down to the Stockyards. During the summer it was hot and miserable, but during the winter, it was bitterly cold, though they treated both seasons the same, drinking mug after mug of coffee year round.

She'd just finished getting away from them, they constantly joked with her, laughed about the time they'd tried to teach her to ride, when the bell over the door jingles.

Madge paid it no attention, it was getting close to time for the kids to come, so she took her empty tray to the counter and began restocking the cupcakes.

She'd bent down, begun adjusting the display, when something tapped her on the shoulder.

"Katy-Jo Lewes, I'm busy." Whatever it was she could do it herself. All she was doing was flirting with that burly wrangler, Wyatt.

The tap came again.

Katy-Jo Lewes was the boss but did she have to be so bossy? Frustrated, Madge stands and turns, "Look, just do it your-"Someone thrust a large bouquet of purple irises in her face.

The flowers dip a little and Gale grins back at her.

Madge's mouth drops. He wasn't supposed to be in until the next day. She lunges at him, throws her arms around his neck and laughs.

"You're early."

Gale nods into her hair, "They cancelled one of the meetings so I decided to catch an early train, spend an extra day with you." He whispers conspiratorially, "Think Crazy-Jo Loon will let you off early?"

She doesn't know. She's already off for the next few days, already had plans to spend them with Gale, it might be a bit of an overstep to ask for the end of this shift too.

Madge lets go of him and shrugs. He looks so hopeful, so excited to take her with him early and not have to immediately go to some stupid gala or a meeting, she at least has to ask.

"Go outside and wait."

Once he's out, standing like a lost puppy on the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop, Madge makes her way back over to the table of wranglers, where Katy-Jo Lewes is laughing and cutting up. She holds up a hand, "I already know what you're gonna ask."

"You psychic now Katy-Jo Lewes?" A dark skinned wrangler, Jessup, laughs.

"I'm not blind," she gestures over her shoulder to where Gale is, just outside the window.

"That your boyfriend, Madgey?" Austin, ash blond and brown eyes, stands to get a better look.

Jefferson grins, begins cackling, "He's a General. Fancy suit and everything."

Madge rolled her eyes. The men were such gossipy hens sometimes. "He isn'tmy boyfriend." They were friends. Period. End of sentence.

They exchange looks.

"He just brought you flowers."

"You looked pretty excited to see him."

"That wasn't a sisterly hug, not by the way helooked anyway."

Jefferson leans toward her, "Boy's smitten."

He is not. These people watched too many Capitol programs, saw romance in every interaction, all the wrong places. Gale wasn't her boyfriend.

"You all need to lay off the coffee," Madge crosses her arms. "Gale is just my friend. We've know each other a long time. We're…comfortable with each other."

Katy-Jo Lewes gives her a sly smile before nudging Jefferson, "They share the bed."

"Oh?" Jefferson's eyes widen. "That kind of friends, huh?"

What? Oh, for pity's sake…

"No!"

"It's okay," Jessup raises his hands. "We ain't judging."

The ancient woman that ran the District Community Home, seated at the table behind the wranglers, leans back, giving Madge a nod of approval. "If I was younger, I'd be that kind of friend with him too, darlin'."

Katy-Jo Lewes and Jessup cringe, audibly gag.

"Oh my lord, Mama Muetter! I don't want to think about you doing that kind of thing. Keep your mouth shut and eat your damn muffin." Katy-Jo Lewes shivers, "I'm gonna have nightmares."

Jessup swallows hard, "I think I threw up."

"Gale and I are friend friends, not whatever weird kind of friends you all are thinking of."

Madge needs new company.

She turns and looks over her shoulder at Gale, he's watching her through the window, still with that hopeful little smile on his face.

They're friends, just friends.

"So," Katy-Jo Lewes smirks, gives her a knowing look, "what's it your 'friend friend' want you to ask me?"

Madge feels her face heat up as they all look at her with expectant, shrewd expressions.

"Um," she has to make this sound casual, "we're going to District Eight, and he got off sooner from his last trip, so he wanted to know if maybe we could leave early. Get an extra day…"

"Together?" Jefferson arches his bushy white eyebrows, "Yeah, that doesn't sound like anything a boyfriend would want to do."

Jessup points to the counter, where the bouquet of irises set. "He needed flowers for that?"

Austin shakes his head, "Nope. Not like a boyfriend at all."

Madge gives them all her best glare. They're making more of this than it is. Friends give each other flowers. Friends spend extra time with each other. Friends hug.

Maybe most friends don't share a bed, she'd give them that, but it was perfectly innocent. They just needed each other, comforted each other, innocently. As friends.

Katy-Jo Lewes clicks her tongue, "Madgey, child, you in deep and you don't even know it." She jerks her head toward the window, toward Gale, "Get out of here with your 'not boyfriend'."

After giving the group a hard look, which only served to make them laugh, she goes to the back, up the stairs, gathers her things, her bag, then snatches her flowers from the counter, and leaves.

Gale puts his arm around her shoulders, "Got out, huh?"

She nods, takes her flowers and bops him on the head, "Obviously."

He leans into her a bit, rests his cheek against her head, and lets out a little sigh.

"I missed you."

Madge wraps her arm around his middle, inhales his scent, detergent, earth, his latest travels air, and smiles, "I missed you too."

Friends missed each other.

And they were friends.

Just friends.


	27. Worrying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale ran his finger over the downy hair, little wrinkled nose, tiny lips of the baby sleeping in his arms.

He'd held his brothers and sister when they'd been newborns, changed their diapers, and fed them when they were older. He was no stranger to the little coos and hiccoughs babies made.

This was different though.

This was hisbaby. He and Madge's son.

Gale was scared beyond belief of what that meant.

When Madge had told him she was pregnant he'd been terrified.

He'd already confessed to her that he was scared of losing her, that he knew he was walking a fine line, was due a tragedy. He was a monster that had gotten too lucky so far, had too much.

Madge had glowed though, burned brighter than the sun in the middle of the summer.

So he'd doted on her, refused to leave the District for even a minute throughout the entire pregnancy, had Vick go with him to the library and look up everything he'd never known about pregnancy and more, just so he would be prepared for anything. Worry ate him up.

"Gale, women have babies everyday," his mother had told him.

"But Madge doesn't."

And Madge was the one that mattered.

Of course, he somehow hadn'tbeen prepared for everything.

The baby had gone past its due date, gotten too big, something Gale didn't even know was possible. Babies came early in the Seam, were born far too small and too weak due to lack of nutrition, but never late, never too big. He hadn't even read about it happening in those stupid library books, it had seemed such a distant possibility.

It was a wholly foreign concept.

The skinny, redheaded doctor from District Ten had explained something about a pelvic disproportion, that they'd need to do a Caesarean Section, cut the baby out.

"Don't worry your handsome head, there, sugar," she'd grinned. "We did this back home often enough on the cows."

Though from what that lunatic Crazy-Jo Loon told him, 'back home' they'd rarely tried to save the cow.

"But Madge is hardly a cow, General Hotness."

That really hadn't calmed his nerves.

It had gone as well as could've been expected. They didn't do the surgery all that often, so a few times Gale had been a little anxious watching them preparing. He'd snapped at a scrub tech for dropping something and interrogated the anesthesiologist before he'd even let her near his wife.

"Perhaps you need some benzo," she'd said, tilting her head. "You're a little…tense."

Gale glared at her. They were about to gut his wife like a fish, of course he was tense.

Madge came through beautifully, she was a consummate survivor, though she'd been annoyed she had to stay in the bed for several hours. She was even more annoyed when Gale kept insisting she take pain medication.

"I'm fine, really."

"I know you don't like the stuff, but if you're in-"

"Gale, I am fine." Madge held out her hands, "Give me my baby." Her face lit up when Gale placed him in her arms, "Look at all his hair."

The baby yawned, stretched inside his swaddling, opened his eyes a fraction to look at the strange giants fawning over him.

They'd counted his wrinkled pink fingers and toes a hundred times, watched him to make sure he was still breathing constantly, had been just a tad critical of the poor girl who'd come in to weigh him and put his diaper on looser than Gale would've liked.

He was perfect and innocent, and Gale thought sadly, he had no idea what kind of monster his father was. Not yet anyway.

"He's so handsome," Madge kissed the baby's head, tapped his nose. "You look just like your daddy."

Gale got up, went to the window and looked out at the quickly sinking sun.

Madge called to him from the bed, "Gale? What's wrong?"

There was a little tremor in her voice, a hitch. It had been a long day, she didn't need more of his worries on her already burdened back.

"Gale." Her hand was out, beckoning him to the bed.

A little reluctantly, she'd get it out of him if he went over and looked into her eyes, he went to the bed and let her pull him down beside her.

"He's going to hate me."

How could he not?

Madge laced their fingers, pressed her palm to his before bringing his hand to her lips and kissing it. She pressed it to her cheek, warm and soft, "He's going to adore you."

Gale looked down at the sleeping baby.

When he got in school he was going to read about all the awful things Gale had done, all the deaths he'd caused, and he was going to see his father for the monster he was.

And Gale will deserve it.

Madge took his chin between her fingers, made him look her in her eyes.

"Gale, listen to me." She pressed a kiss to his mouth, pulled back and bit her lip. "He isn't going to care about all that. You have to believe me."

Gale didn't respond, just nodded, not really believing her.

"Do you think I hated my father?" Her mouth turned down.

He wasn't sure how his act of evil could be compared to a man who had his hands tied by a corrupt government.

"What are you talking about?"

Madge's mouth twitched up in a sad smile, "Do you know all the horrible things I heard about my father, my mother even, all my life?" She swallowed thickly, "Kids, adults, they would say the most awful things to me. So many things about him…"

"Some of them were true, you know? He didn't have any real power, he tried to make things better in the District, but he had to do some really horrible things. It was the only way to protect the majority, to make small sacrifices."

Gale shook his head, "Your dad was-he didn't choose to do the things he did, Madge. I did."

"Didn't he?" Her voice rose a little. Gale could hear the tremble. "He chose to go into the civil services. He chose to align himself withthem. He thought he was doing the best thing with the resources available to him too, Gale. Just like you thought you were doing the most good with what you had." She cradled the baby a little closer, "I had my rose colored glasses knocked off and stomped to pieces when I was very little as far as my parents, as far as my father was concerned. I saw him for what he was. A puppet. A good-hearted, but powerless puppet."

And Gale had been too.

He'd been used by the Rebels, had his anger exploited to create something evil, just as the Capitol had exploited the Mayor's desire to save as many people as possible to create a docile District.

"I could never hate my father, no matter what he did, because I saw the good he meant to do."

Even if he hadn't succeeded.

"You meant to do good too, Gale," Madge's eyes shone.

He wasn't so sure, but her faith in him, in the belief that he hadn't been as evil as he knew himself to have been, made him think that maybe, someday, he would believe it himself.

Gale took a ragged breath, let it out slowly, then smiled.

"I just-I don't know, worry." He wouldn't be able to take it, if the baby, his son, hated him.

"Well," Madge grinned, "you know what they say about worrying in District Ten, don't you?"

Gale's eyebrows knitted together. He rarely liked anything those wheat-fed prairie bastards had to say.

"Worrying is like ropin' the wind," she linked her arm in his again. "You can do it all day, but it won't do a thing."

It was a pointless endeavor.

That was…actually one of their less bizarre bits of wisdom. He would never admit that though.

"I'll be sure to thank Loony for instilling you with so much down-home wisdom next time we see her."

Which he hoped was not until the baby was old enough to get married. She'd threatened to have snake skin boots and a Stetson made for him. Gale wasn't sure if she was serious, but it was best to be safe.

Madge snorted, sat the baby on the bed and smiled.

"He really does look like you."

Gale shook his head, "Nope, look at his nose. All you."

"Oh don't say that," her hand jumped to her own nose, covered it.

"You have a very cute nose," Gale kissed the tip of it.

Madge made a gagging noise and Gale laughed, waking the baby.

Gale picked him up, began rocking him gently, and he quieted.

They had a son, whether Gale was ready or not, whether Gale worried all day and night that he'd hate him, they had a son. He ran his finger over the soft hair, little nose and lips of the baby sleeping in his arms again. He was perfect, and Gale would spend the rest of his life earning his love and making Madge's faith in him something he could believe himself.

He sighed, "We have son."

Madge kissed his jaw then let her cheek rest on his shoulder.

"We sure do."


	28. Bump in the Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale wakes when a tiny set of fingers pry his heavy lids open.

"You seepin', daddy?"

Well not anymore.

Wide gray eyes, like his own, but less stormy, much more calm like Madge's, stare back at him from the edge of the bed. His son's lower lip puckers out when Gale doesn't answer.

"You hurt?"

Gale shakes his head, partly to tell him no and partly to dislodge the last of sleep haze from his head. He hadn't been sleeping all that well anyways, he rarely did when Madge was gone, which wasn't often, but that seemed to make her absence that much more aching.

He pushes himself up, "What's wrong?"

Glen normally slept through the night, something had to have woken him. Maybe his mother being off, down to District Ten to visit her insane friends, had thrown off his night as much as it had Gale's own. The past two nights had felt an eternity long.

"Is you sad?" Glen climbs up on the bed, plops cross legged down next to him, sets him in his steady little gaze.

Gale shakes his head again. Why was his son waking him up in the dead of night to ask such strange questions? "Why do you think I'm sad?"

Popping up on his knees, Glen reaches one of his sweaty little hands out and rubs it across Gale's cheek. He feels something smear.

He'd been crying.

His stomach turns as he wonders how long Glen had stood there listening to him, watching him cry. Gale must've been loud, for him to have heard it all the way in the other room.

"Is it 'cause momma not here?" His nose wrinkles up, "You need her kiss you owies bedder?"

Involuntarily, Gale's hand shoots to his shoulder. He doesn't wear a shirt to sleep, it's the only time he lets his still tattered and scarred skin breathe. Glen had seen his back, but he'd never mentioned it. A little foolishly, Gale hoped the subject would never have to be broached, that his son would just assume everyone's dad had a ragged back.

"Momma say you hurt sometime, an tha' why you make sounds when you seep." Glen frowns at his stuffed toy, a yellow stripped kitten, "I gives you Woofus last night, and the other night, but you was cwyin' a'night so I wak'ed you up."

Gale remembers finding the weathered animal on his bed the past few mornings and wondering how it had gotten there. Now he knows and it makes his stomach drop.

Glen had been giving him Rufus, his favorite toy, the only thing that made him feel better when he was sick. His son, his two year old, had been trying to comfort him in the only way he could think of.

Gale feels his stomach fall a little further when he finally registers the rest of what his son has said.

This isn't an uncommon occurrence. He's heard Gale's nightmares before, but Madge had been there to kiss them away. With her off for a few days, Glen feels it's his job to battle his dad's demons.

The empty silence doesn't sit well with the toddler, who stands and flings his tiny arms around Gale's neck. After a few seconds, Glen lets him go and leans to kiss his shoulder, on the edge of one of the highest scars.

"I kiss it bedder?"

Gale doesn't trust himself to say anything, so he nods and pulls his son into a tight hug.

He wishes Madge had told him, she's protecting him, he knows that, but still…

"I'm sorry I scared you, bud."

Gale feels the ache of failure constrict his chest. He's been putting his pain on his son's shoulders and he hadn't even known it.

"I not scared, daddy," Glen squeezes tighter. "I jus' di'in't wan' you be hur'in."

Another pang hits Gale's chest, little kids shouldn't worry about their parents, for any reason. Gale had worried about his own father, day in and day out, when he went into the mines and when he ventured into the woods. He'd promised himself when, if, he had children they would never have to worry about him.

It's just one more failure in his life.

He lets Glen settle down in his lap, lean back into Gale's chest.

"You don't have to worry about me, okay?" Gale plants a kiss in his son's sweet smelling dark hair.

Glen leans back further, tilts his head so that he can see Gale, "I not worried. Momma say you fought los-o bad guys a'fore I was born and so that why you hurt." His lower lip juts out, "She say you was very bwave but los-o bad sings happen'a you and now dey hurt you when you a'seep. So she say we haffa jus' make you feel safe until you wake up."

Gale pulls him into another hug. He's positive his son's good nature is all a credit to Madge.

"I sorry I wak'ed you up, but I not know wha' else'a do," Glen puts his hands up, his nose wrinkles and his mouth turns down.

With a sigh, Gale smoothes the back of Glen's hair, "You don't have to be sorry, alright?"

Glen looks unconvinced, "But I not make you feel safe."

Giving him another kiss on the top of his head, Gale smiles, "Yeah, you did."

#######

When Madge got home, looking exhausted, but cheerful, Gale kissed her breathless the moment she stepped off the hovercraft.

"You missed me, huh?" She giggled as he buried his face in her hair, breathing in the scent of wind from it.

Glen huffed from his place on Gale's hip, "I miss you too, momma!"

She pulled him from Gale, covered his face in kisses until he told her 'No more, momma!' and gave her one tiny peck on the cheek.

It isn't until she's ready for bed, in one of Gale's favorite old gowns, faded and thin and soft, that he asks her about what Glen had told him.

Madge worries her lip between her teeth, fiddles with a loose strand of her hair. Her wide calm eyes flicker with anxiety, "Don't be mad."

He can't keep himself from scowling.

"I'm not mad." The only thing he feels is disappointment in himself. He's failed her and their son by keeping them up at night with his nightmares and demons. His hands rub over his eyes, press into them until he sees stars, then he runs them through his hair, standing it on end. "I'm just…sorry." He sighs, "I'm sorry I'm still having stupid nightmares and-"

Madge cuts him off with the palm of her cool hand.

"Gale, your nightmares aren't stupid. You went through a lot, you suffered a lot-"

He pulls her hand down, "So did you."

And she doesn't wake up the house with her crying.

When she shakes her head Gale catches a whiff of her shampoo, "I grew up in a warm house with food. I spent the war with Katy-Jo Lewes delivering weapons across the plains. I hardly call that suffering."

Madge had suffered though, and Gale knew it.

Maybe not in the same way, maybe not physically, with the scars to show for it, but despite what she said, he knew her life had been anything but easy.

Before he can say anything about that, though, his mouth voices his worst fear, the worry that's been eating him since the night Glen had woke him.

"I scare Glen."

Madge is quiet for a second, her lips are pressed into a thin line.

"No, Gale, you don't."

He starts to protest, but she cuts him off with a look, "He isn't scared. He understands…in his own way."

"He shouldn't have to."

Madge takes his hand and pulls him to the bed. When he's sitting, she begins picking at a loose thread on her gown.

"My mother use to have nightmares too, sometimes. About the Games, her sister." Her eyebrows come together in thought, "When Mr. Abernathy would come over, pass out, I would hear him having them too." A sad little smile flickers on her lips, "Gale, kids create their own normal. Daddy has nightmares because of bad people, momma can't leave dishes in the sink because of her old housekeeper, those are Glen's normal. He doesn't really understand the 'why', he's just too young for it. The words have no real meaning to him. Someday, though, they will. He'll know that some families are different than his, and that's okay. He'll be okay."

Gale studies her for a minute. Watches her clear eyes shimmer and her lips press and part from each other in anticipation.

Her mother had been a mess and her father had been running a District, keeping it as ignored as possible, they'd had precious little time to devote to her. She'd grown up with minimal attention, practically raised herself it seemed to him, but she was fine.

Madge is okay, despite her emotionally exhausting childhood, and Glen is Madge's son too.

He'd be okay.

Gale reaches up, pushes a few loose strands from the side of her face before cupping her cheek. He leans in, begins kissing her, letting one of his hands run up her thighs while the other begins guiding her back.

"I'll take this as a 'thank you' and an 'I missed you'," she murmurs against the side of his face.

"Definitely." On both accounts.

He stops abruptly, though, when he hears little feet slapping against the wood floors, down the hall, and into their room.

"I seep with you a'night."

Gale stifles a groan. He sees a visit to Grammy in his son's future.


	29. Birds and Bread

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale glared at the little blonde headed girl standing at the edge of the meadow.

She had a plain paper bag in one hand, gripping it tightly between her gloved fingers. Her other hand was reaching in, grabbing handfuls of what looked to be breadcrumbs and flinging them out to the waiting flock of geese that had landed there, honking and squawking.

He squinted, tried to make out her soft features under her scarf and hat. It took him a few seconds, maybe a minute, but he finally recognized her.

Madge Undersee, the Mayor's daughter.

Of course she would have money to waste on bread to feed stupid birds. Normally she was with her mother and grandfather though…

Gale watched her for a few minutes as she tossed handfuls out, a little listlessly, before dropping down cross-legged in the grass. She plucked a few stands up, lifted them and let them blow off in the wind.

She wiped her eyes a few times, rubbed her nose, before covering her face in her hands.

He didn't know how, but he knew, just knew, she was crying.

He'd heard her grandfather, the old candy maker, had died. Gale remembered him, he was always nice, gave his old candy away at a discount, which was better than most the merchants in Town did. Gale would've never tasted any of the sweet treats if not for that small mercy.

Begrudgingly, he stomped over to where she was sitting, plopped down beside her with his legs out in front of him, supported by his arms behind him.

"Uh, sorry about your grandpa."

She sniffled, brushed some loose strands of hair from her face and tucked them up into her hat, then nodded.

For a few minutes they just sit quietly, watching the geese wander around and obnoxiously honk at one another. Then she sighs.

"He used to feed the birds with me and my mother," she wiped her face again. "He said it isn't really good for them, like candy isn't good for people, but that it's a nice treat every now and then for them." Her nose wrinkled up, "I thought my mom might come out and feed them with me, but she didn't want to."

Gale thought it was stupid to think that birds, or any animal really, needed a treat like a human, but decided she probably didn't need to hear that. She was already upset, telling her a clearly long treasured pastime was ridiculous would've probably just made her cry more.

They sit there in silence for a few more minutes before Gale reached over patted her on the back.

The girl glanced over, her eyes puffy and red rimmed, and smiled sadly, "Thanks."

########

There are geese down the road from the house. Gale notices them on his drive to work and thinks of Madge.

She'd fed the stupid things back in Twelve, given them bread as 'treats' during the winter when there were more flocks around. He hadn't thought about it much, or ever, really, since the last time he'd seen her doing it, the winter before the 74th Games. Even then he'd only thought about it in annoyance, that he couldn't shoot the loud nuisances while she had them distracted.

He might not have even noticed the noisy, obnoxious things, if she hadn't been pregnant.

She'd mentioned, a bit sadly, the things she'd done with her family when she'd been little, the things she could do with their child when it was older.

"I can teach them the constellations like my father did with me. Make candy like Poppa and I did." Her nose wrinkled up, "Maybe…"

When she didn't mention anything with her mother, Gale felt his stomach drop a little. He knew Madge loved her mother, but he also knew she had precious few truly good memories of her. From what he'd gleaned, Mrs. Undersee had been more of a child to Madge than the other way around.

Madge had talked about baking with her mother, but the stories had always seemed to end in disaster. Her mother had never really played with her, hadn't had the energy to. She'd mentioned making a doll with her once, but that had only come about because a group of boys had destroyed her previous toys.

Most of Madge's memories of her mother were tainted with sadness.

Despite his best efforts, Gale hadn't been able to come up with one good thing for Madge to associate with her departed mother that she could pass on to the baby quickly growing inside her.

Then he'd seen the geese.

So, a bit irritably, he couldn't believe he was spending money on bread for dumb as dirt birds, he went to the bakery.

"I just want a bag of old bread." The staler the better, and he hoped it was at a discount.

The baker, an annoyingly jolly man, blue eyed and bald headed, nodded as he rummaged around in the back of his shop. "What're you doing with it?"

It was none of his business, this was a business transaction and the only thing they needed to discuss was the price. Madge had told Gale he needed to learn to be a bit friendlier, though, less hostile to people, so he grunted, "For my wife to feed the geese."

As he handed Gale the bag he frowned, "You know bread isn't good for them, right?"

It took all Gale's hard fought patience to grit his teeth and nod.

Were all merchants bird feeding experts?

When he walks through the door to the house he can hear her upstairs. He's forbidden her from painting, but she's taken to changing out the curtains and crib sheets almost daily as well as rearranging the closet. She had been pushing the furniture around, but Gale had quickly put a stop to that too.

He takes the stairs quietly, treading silently down the hall to the nursery.

Madge is refolding some of the blankets his mother had bought. They had too many of the silly things, but his mother insists they'll need them, especially when winter hits.

She's moving on to the hat and sock drawer when Gale softly walks across the floor, making sure to only step on the rag rug Madge and Posy had constructed, green and yellow bits of cloth tied and woven together in an oval.

His arms snake around her, just above her ever expanding stomach, and he presses a kiss to the side of her neck, below her ear.

"You'll wear holes in those," he whispers.

A little snort bursts out of her, "Oh, really?"

Gale lets his free hand rub up and down her belly, hoping the baby will kick against him. Madge takes his hand, redirects it, and presses it in a little, "He's right there. Been jumping up and down on my bladder all day."

"What makes you think it's a 'he'?" The baby kicks, just barely, "Maybe it's a 'she'."

Madge's nose wrinkles, "Nope. Boy. Definitely."

Despite the fact that Gale is positive the baby is a girl, he's seen his mother pregnant three times after all, he lets the discussion go. He pulls Madge back against him a little more firmly.

"I brought you something," he hoists the paper bag up.

She eyes it curiously before reaching out and taking it from his hands and opening it.

"Gee, thanks Gale. Is it dessert or supper?"

Eyes rolling, Gale takes the bag back. He turns her, takes her hands in his, the bag between them.

"Back in Twelve, you used to feed the geese, with your mother and grandpa." He gives the bag a little shake, the contents rattle dryly. "Stupid things are down at the pond. Thought you might like to give it a try."

It seems stupid when he says it, and he thinks she might be wondering if he's lost his mind.

Then she smiles.

Her eyes narrow a little, a small smile works its way on her lips, "How do you remember that?"

She hadn't mentioned it during any of their discussions of the past.

Gale can feel his face warming, darkening under her look as he shrugs, "Dunno."

"Liar."

Warm lips press to his jaw, down his neck, then back up, "Gale Hawthorne, you paid attention to me."

As much as he'd hated to admit it when he was younger, when she'd been out of his reach, an impossibility, he had paid attention to her. He hadn't wanted to, had tried not to, but he had.

Dipping down, he catches her lips, drops the bag of bread crumbs to the ground and pulls her as close as her stomach will allow, lifting her up onto her toes.

"Oh, Gale, be careful!" She startles him, drops back to her feet. "You'll hurt your back lifting me."

Before she can protest he catches her under her knees, picks her up and spins her around, "Are you doubting my strength?"

A bright little laugh bubbles out of her as she forces him to put her down, "Never, but I weight a ton and-"

She talks too much, so he kisses her to stop her babbling.

After what he judges to be not long enough, she pulls back, grinning as she leans down, with some considerable effort, and snatches the bread bag back up.

"Come on." She grabs his hand, "Come show me the geese."

Gale groans. He didn't want to feed those stupid things. "Can't you take Vick?"

That would be perfect, Vick likes doing nonsense like feeding birds.

Madge just shakes her head, "Nope. You, me, and baby are going to have some bonding time."

He sighs, "Just remember, it's a treat for them."

She can't make him feed them all the time.


	30. A Precious Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not Mine.

Gale hates the way the men look at Madge.

Their eyes trail up her, follow her, linger on parts of her that they have no business lingering on. It's bad enough when their just out in public, when she's dressed modestly, but when they're at those stupid galas…

He likes to see Madge get dressed up. She's beautiful and has every right to show herself off. That doesn't give those filthy minded bastards the right to oogle her.

Besides, Gale's the only one that's supposed to be doing that.

"She's not off the menu yet," Thom had pointed out one day during lunch, when he was visiting.

Madge had brought Gale lunch, he'd been running late, something that was completely her fault anyway-if she weren't so obliging he would've gotten out of bed on time-and so she'd done the kind thing and brought him his paper sack stuffed with his food up to his office.

She hadn't even been there ten minutes, but considering she was probably the most attractive female on the military campus, most of the men had given her more than a passing look.

It made Gale more than a little irritated, especially when one of the useless twits from the mail room had blatantly stared at her as she'd left. Gale had caught his eyes and made a particularly threatening hand gesture, causing the idiot to walk into a wall.

"You can't blame guys for just looking," Thom shrugged.

"Well she isoff the menu," Gale scowled. They were dating. They lived together. How far removed from the menu did she need to be?

Besides, that was a stupid way of putting it anyway, she wasn't something to be bought.

Thom jabbed a piece of jerky at him, "You've been dating for a while, and you were 'friends' for ages before that." He arched his eyebrows up, "Guys know a pretty girl like that isn't going to wait forever. Especially for someone as cranky as you."

Gale huffed, glared, "Wait forever?"

"For you to get off the pot or do something, you moron." Thom bit off a piece of the jerky, "She won't have any shortage of men if she ever wises up that you're clueless."

It wasn't that he was clueless, he was just being cautious. Madge may not spook as easily as she had in the past, but he'd still carefully planned it out when he'd asked her to move to Two, with the house, the reasons, had an entire explanation for her need to change Districts.

Not that he'd needed it, but still.

They lived together now, had for a while, what reason would he have to convince her to marry him?

As happy as she seemed, Madge was still a politician's daughter, still had the bad habit of playing things close to the chest, despite how much progress they'd made. For all he knew, she didn't want to get married. She never dropped hints or made any indication that she wanted to change their relationship.

He carried the pendant his mother had given him when he'd bought the house with him everywhere, waiting for the sign, like the desk job that had given him the reason to ask her to move to Two, that would tell him to make the next move.

It just hadn't come.

But as he watches the men at the gala, an event Gale hadn't even wanted to attend, staring at her from the moment they walk through the too highly ornate doors, he can't help but wonder if maybe their persistent looks are the sign he's been waiting for.

He's about made up his mind, he'll just take her out on the balcony and ask, that was romantic wasn't it? When someone, a former Capitol stooge, brings up the Rebellion, begins exalting the cleverness of so many of the worst of their plans, including Gale's bomb, especially Gale's bomb, his resolve falters.

Madge wasn't a killer. She never would've conceived of something like Gale had, a bomb intended to take out people who only wanted to help.

Cold dread, an infectious fear, takes up residence in his stomach, creeps up through his chest.

Madge isn't going to want to be tethered, for the rest of her life, to someone as horrible as him. One day she's going to wake up and realize she's sharing a bed with a monster.

Without telling her, he heads for the bar.

#######

Madge heaves Gale, she swears he gets heavier when he drinks.

"Step, Gale, step."

Normally he didn't drink this much. In fact, it had been years since he'd gotten to the point of almost being unable to walk. She, and her back, were grateful for that.

They'd gone to another gala, the first one he'd been mandated to attend in several months.

It had been going well enough, mostly Gale had just danced with her, and she remembered thinking he was infinitely better than he had been the first time they'd done so. Then someone had mentioned something about the Rebellion, praised the brilliance of those who'd won the battle of the Capitol. Gale's bomb got special mention.

"It was an ingenuous design," one of the old men, a judge supposedly, had said. "Pity it wasn't used for its intended targets."

Madge had lost him after that. He'd disappeared, back to the bar and its endless supply of drinks, until one of the bartenders had found her and asked her to get him out.

"He's wiped out our Vat 69."

So Madge had wrapped her arms around his waist and heaved him from his seat, pulled him from the barstool and guided him, slowly, toward the elevator.

He's better about getting on elevators when he's sober, just grips her hand and holds his breath until the doors open. When he's drunk though, it's much worse.

When they'd just been friends he'd held her to him during the short little rides, his fingers had dug into her sides and his face had hidden in her hair. Since they've been together though, whenever he's been drunk, he's almost smothered her. His arms circle her, crush her to him. He'll kiss her, a little obscenely for such a public place, no matter if there are people with them on the ride or not. The alcohol brought out the most broken side of him, it seemed, the side that needed comfort, and he would berate himself for hurting her, making her uncomfortable the next morning.

It was hard to be mad at him, though. He was such an affectionate drunk, usually chatty, and adorable. The things he hated to tell her, the dark things that she had to drag out of him most of the time, would slip out on the increasingly rare occasion he would drink.

"I'm s-sorry," he mumbles in her hair. "I jush di'n't-I could'n't lishen to t-them."

His heavy hand smeared tears across his face. Madge felt her heart crack down the center at the sight.

"It's okay, Gale, I understand."

Blinking down at her, he sniffles, nods, tries to upright himself a little, but his coordination is shot and his feet stumble. Madge just barely keeps him from landing face first in the wall by catching him under the arm.

He buries his face in her hair again. "I'm s-sorry."

After a few more near tumbles, she manages to get him to the elevator. He wraps himself tightly around her, his chest against her back, taking shallow little breaths, his harsh, drunken breath ghosting through her hair and across her face. Madge is barely able to breath, his arms are so tight, but she just gently traces lines across his now white knuckles, doesn't say a word.

When they finally reach their floor, spill out onto the highly polished floor of the hall, Madge struggles to keep Gale from taking them both down. He seems to be getting incrementally heavier with each step.

Then he starts kissing her, his wandering hands begin tugging, lifting, searching her as she tries desperately to get the key card out and open the door.

He's found the zipper, begun clumsily tugging it down, when, mercifully, Madge finds the card, throws the door open, and pushes Gale through the opening. She isn't going to be part of some perverted security guards late night watch part on the closed circuit cameras.

Feet tangling, Gale almost pulls her down, but she slips from his grasp and he lands on his butt with a thud.

Grinning up with her, her reaches out, beckons her with grabby hands and half lidded eyes.

Exasperated but amused, Madge takes both his hands in hers and attempts to pull him back to his feet, if she can get him up she can get him to the bed and keep a better eye on him while he sleeps. Gale seems to have other ideas, though, and pulls her to the ground, rolls and pins her under him.

"I love you s-so mush," he mumbles against her neck as he kisses her.

It's sloppy, tastes of the multitude of whisky he's consumed. The carpet rubs uncomfortably against her back and she winces. Her fingers weave through his hair and she presses her lips to his temple before whispering, "We need to get to the bed, Gale."

He grunts, mumbles something unintelligible, but sits up and pulls her with him. With considerable effort, he struggles to his feet, Madge scrambling after him and quickly guiding him toward the bed as he continues to try and divest her of her dress.

By the time they reach the bed he's achieved his goal and Madge's dress slips down. Looking pleased with him, Gale begins trying to take off his own clothes.

It's funny, Madge thinks, that even drunk he's better at getting her clothes off than she is, but can't manage to get much more than his own shoes off.

After watching him try, painfully, fruitlessly, for several minutes, and fighting off giggles at his frustrated expression, Madge takes pity on him and begins helping him get undressed.

"Gale…" She shakes her head. He really shouldn't drink, it makes him helpless.

After unbuttoning his shirt, pushing it away, pulling his undershirt off, Madge moves to the next article of clothing. He continues to grin drunkenly down at her as she begins to tug his dress pants off. She gives him a little shove, back flat to the bed, before jerking them completely free of him. Smiling, Madge folds them and tosses them to the chair behind her.

When she turns back to the bed, Gale is sitting up, his grin is gone, replaced by a small frown. His eyes are still half closed, but they're less drunken, more weary. He studies her for a minute before sighing.

"I'm ss-sorry."

Madge takes his face in her hands, stubble is already growing back, thick and scratchy, on his cheeks. She rubs her thumbs across it and smiles, "What for?"

Nearly giving the security guards watching on the cameras in the halls an eyeful? He should be sorry for that.

"E-ev'rything."

Everything was quite a lot. She squints at him, "What's everything?"

He makes a frustrated little noise, his eyebrows knit together, "I'm'ma mur'drer." His hands come up, push her hands away, then run through his hair, standing it on end, "I dunno why y-you're w-with me."

With a little sigh, Madge begins smoothing his hair back down, presses a kiss to his forehead, "I'm with you 'cause I love you." She catches his chin, "And you are not a murderer."

He was the victim of circumstance, had been at the eye of a storm that had drawn out the worst in him, and those idiots down at the gala who'd praised his bomb, his greatest regret, were nothing but monsters that loved the misery of others.

"Y-you shoul'd'n't," his face droops a little more. "But I'm g-glad you d-do." The look of frustration on his face is almost comical, "I mm-mean-I wan' you…" His hands are back on his face, pressing into his eyes, "I don' wanna los-se you."

He isn't making any sense, and his frustration with her lack of understanding is leaking to her.

"Gale, what do you-"

"I wan' you t'mar'ry m-me!" He finally sputters.

There are several seconds of stunned silence as Madge lets her gaze flicker over Gale's now scowling face. Her heart pauses and her breath catches before she comes to her senses.

He's drunk. He can't possibly really want to marry her. They already live together, what more could he want? He'll sober up in the morning and come to his senses…

"Gale…" Madge lets her forehead come to a rest against his. "You don't want to marry me."

Gale grunts, "Yesh, I d-do."

Tilting her head, Madge feels her mouth turn down as she looks at him, "Why?"

"Be-cosh I love y-you," his eyebrows scrunch together again as he thinks, "and I don' wan' to be with-ou-out you."

She runs her hand along his jaw, the stubble prickles her fingers, "If you wanted to marry me you would've asked me when you were sober."

No matter how painfully honest he is as a drunk, proposals in the wake of a bender are probably not well considered.

A little groan rumbles out of Gale's chest, he pulls her closer, presses his face to her nearly bare chest, "I was-s s-schcared you'd s-say n-no." She feels his Adam's apple bob on her collarbone, the whiskers brush gently against her skin, "But I'm more s-schcared of los-ss-ing you."

Madge feels her heart stutter. She isn't sure why he suddenly has some great fear of losing her, they live in the same house, spend the greater part of their days together. It should be abundantly clear she isn't going anywhere, he isn't in any danger of her going anywhere.

She would marry him in a heartbeat, half of one even. The fear of being like her parents had loomed over her when she was younger, but she and Gale were so different, had so much more communication than her parents ever had, at least to her knowledge, that that fear had dissipated long ago. They're together, though, happy, and having that is enough at the moment. She doesn't need a drink fueled proposal to muddle their relationship.

Before she knows what he's doing, Gale's struggles to his feet, stumbles over to where his clothes are, and begins riffling through his pockets. More than a little confused, Madge walks over to him, hoping he hadn't hit his head and she didn't realize it.

She puts a hand on his scarred shoulder just as he turns, a look of triumph on his face as he holds something up to her. He grabs her hand and presses whatever small trinket he's dug from his pocket to her palm, kissing the tips of her fingers as he does so.

He loses his balance, tumbles into the chair, pulling Madge down with him, into his lap.

Once he's tightened his grip around her waist, settled his chin to her shoulder, Madge opens her hand.

Resting in her palm is a silver pendant with a pearl set in it. It looks to be quite old, probably from before the time of Panem by the delicate look of it, the simplicity. Antiques like this cost a fortune, something Madge can't imagine Gale indulging in, even if he has the means.

"Where did you get this?"

"It's m-my m-moth'er's," he mumbles, his eyelashes flutter into her neck. "She g-gave t'me for y-you."

Madge stares at him, doesn't blink, "Why?"

His eye roll up to the ceiling, "S-so when I as-sked y-you to m-mar'ry me I'd'ave s-s-something."

Her heart stops dead in her chest.

He's actually thought about this, it isn't entirely some drunken proposition.

Gale is serious. He's asking her to marry him.

When she finally takes a breath, long and deep, her lungs burn and her heart jumps back into rhythm, banging furiously against her ribs. She looks, wide eyed, at Gale.

He's a little pale, ashen almost in the pale light filtering in the window from outside, and his eyes are wide, terrified almost. He keeps swallowing, but his overabundance of spit from earlier seems to have left him.

"I kn-know I'm n-not d-do-doing it r-right." Madge can feel him trembling, just barely, as he speaks. "I'm s'posed t'get d-down and s-s-s-say s-some'in stup-pid," he swallows hard, "but I'm n-no good at g-gettin' sh-shit righ', so…"

His eyes begin shimmering and his words get thicker, "P-pleash? I'm s-sorry, I mesh't up, but-"

Before he can finish, Madge presses her lips to his. He talks too much when he's drunk.

Twisting around, she straddles his lap, deepens the kiss. She presses a few soft kisses along his jaw, up to his ear, "That's a 'yeshhh'. In case you were wondering."

Pulling back, he narrows his eyes, "Are y-you mak-ing f-fun of mm-me?"

Madge snorts, wrapping her arms around his neck and nuzzling into his hair, it smells of raspberries. Someone has been using her shampoo again.

"I would never make fun of a General, Gale."

A little chuckle rumbles in his chest, reverberates through her body.

"G-Good," his teeth graze her shoulder. "But you cou-could if you w-wanted to…"

Her lips move back to his, nip at them a few times before he growls in frustration and puts one of his hands behind her head to keep her from teasing him. His other hand runs a warm trail up her back, quickly finding her bra and unhooking it.

Baffled by a pair of dress pants, but unhindered by a bra clasp. Amazing.

Before she can stop him, he's trying to stand, with her legs wrapped around his middle. Predictably, they end up on the floor in heap, not that that deters him. He just keeps kissing her.

"You're gon-na be my w-wife," he says, a dopish grin forming on his lips.

Madge taps the end of his nose, "Unless you come to your senses in the morning."

Gale shakes his head, "You aren't g-gett-ing out-ta it th-that easy."

#######

Somehow Madge had gotten the bedspread and sheets down to the floor.

Gale feels bad, he's too heavy for her to drag up on the mattress, so she'd just done what she could to keep them from sleeping directly on what she probably thinks is a disgusting hotel floor. He imagines she'd gotten up after he'd drifted off and pulled what she could down to them.

She should've just crawled into bed, made sure she was comfortable, but he knows she would never leave him by himself. He knows she isn't going to wake up and see the monster she keeps letting hold her through the night. All Madge will ever see is Gale.

A ripple of guilt shoots through him, he'd never have afforded her that kindness when they'd been younger, just one more thing that will be weighed against him someday.

Her nose presses into his sternum, its cold against his skin as she lets out a long breath.

Wide blue eyes flutter open, sleepily flicker up to him, a little wary. "How do you feel?"

Like someone beat me with a pick ax. He shrugs, "Not bad."

Her lower lip puckers out, "Do-"

Gale stops her, kisses her.

She makes a face as he pulls back, "I'm sorry, I love you, but you taste like skunk."

He chuckles, kisses her again, "A skunk you'd marry?"

Madge freezes, for a second he thinks she's changed her mind. Then her face brightens, breaks into a smile, "Unless it's come to its senses."

She opens her hand, the pendant has left an indentation in her palm. She must've held onto it all night.

Gale wraps his larger hand around hers, closing it up around the little iridescent stone, "Not a chance."

Madge is off the menu, completely, forever.

He smirks to himself.

Those pervy old men may get to see her all dolled up, may let their eyes settle a little too long on her, but Gale is the only one that gets to see her magnificent bed-head and sleep hazy eyes.

And he's the only one that ever will.

They didn't know what they were missing.


	31. Dwell on Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale wakes to a small foot in his face. When he opens his eyes he finds his son's blue footie pajama almost up his nose.

Glen is sprawled across him, across Madge too, his dark head is pushing into her side, ear to her increasingly swollen stomach. He keeps telling them he's listening to the baby talk, giving them instructions on what 'she' wants for 'her' nursery.

"It might be a boy," Gale tells him. He'd gotten two brothers before he got a sister after all.

His son just shakes his head, "No, isa girl."

As Gale wasn't likely to change his son's mind, he's been surprisingly persistent on this point, he nodded each time Glen mentioned his new 'sister'.

Pushing the little foot out of his face, Gale reaches out and runs his hand along Madge's cheek.

He misses their normal sleeping arraignment, but she's had to sleep on her side these last few weeks, as the baby grew. Having Glen decide he needs to stay as close to them as possible the closer the due date gets is also a little annoying. It makes even innocent cuddling impossible.

When his hand comes to a rest on her stomach, applying just a tiny amount of pressure, he feels a small kick.

His mind flickers to his mother, heavily pregnant with Posy, at the Justice Building, standing by his side as he received his father's medal.

In a flash his mother is replaced by Madge, scared and alone, holding onto Glen's little hand as a shadowy figure, maybe her father, maybe some faceless bureaucrat, hands her a cold medal, thanks her for her husband's sacrifice.

It's a stupid thought: they aren't in District Twelve, Gale has an office job, most of the resistance to the new government is long squelched out. He's relatively safe. At the very least he'll never go down in those dark mines again.

There's little chance he'll leave Madge a young widow, leave his children fatherless and starving. They're in Two, not living under the tyrannical government Gale had grown up with, even if something happened to him, they wouldn't be forced to scavenge for food, poach, and barter. His children will never go to sleep with empty bellies and Madge will never be forced to work her hands raw to support them.

She makes a small noise in her sleep, rubs her nose before shifting her hips and knocking Glen off her stomach. The boy just groggily sits up, wrinkles his nose before flopping back down, slamming his hard head into Gale's shoulder.

At least it wasn't Madge's stomach.

He extracts his arm from under Glen's head, ruffles his hair, and presses a kiss to his head.

This wasn't the life he'd imagined growing up, when he was a teenager.

His mind had been set, firmly believing he would be a miner, like his father, and his grandfather, and all the other men in his family. He would marry a girl from the Seam, for a long time he'd thought that would be Katniss, and they would have a few kids that would travel the same bleak path. He'd probably die young, in the mines, leaving his children and widow to fend for themselves, just as his father had.

It had been an almost certainty.

He'd hoped Katniss would see the light, marry him, and be happy. He hadn't been sure he believed in any higher power, but he'd prayed for that one small mercy, one miracle in his life of misery, to at least get the girl he felt most compatible with, an equal partner in life. Someone who was strong, could survive when he died, take care of their children like his mother had.

Madge had never even been in the equation. She couldn't have been.

He hadn't imagined she could ever be as strong as she is.

She had been the Mayor's daughter, a child of privilege, she'd never suffered like he had.

It hadn't occurred to him she'd suffered different ways.

Madge's life had straddled a thin line between District Twelve, a poor backwater that rejected her, painted her unfairly as a snob, and the Capitol, that saw her as the harmless daughter of a rube government puppet. She'd had to live in a limbo she had no control over, suffered abuses from both sides without so much as a whimper. She had been, is, so much stronger than he could've ever believed.

Back when he'd been arrested for poaching, whipped, she'd brought her mother's morphling for him. Run through a blizzard, probably could've died or been caught and punished herself, all to keep him from suffering, maybe even dying of the pain.

If there was ever someone that was strong, a survivor, brave, it was Madge.

He hadn't even spared her much thought when Thom had told him her house had been destroyed. There was too much to do, too many lives at stake, too many changes happening. Katniss was back, needed help, the Rebellion needed help, Beetee needed help. Gale's mind was too occupied to give her a proper farewell, be even one of a few survivors to grieve her. Honestly, he didn't even know if any of the dead had really been grieved for, it had just been too hectic for such a luxury.

When he'd admitted to Madge, told her he hadn't gone back for her, Gale had hoped and prayed that she would ream him out, curse his name for his cold heartedness, his thoughtlessness.

He'd expected her to be offended, upset, but she'd simply shrugged. As if she had expected nothing better. Not from him or anyone else.

She had deserved better, though, even if she didn't think so.

He still often wished she had gotten angry, at the very least yelled at him. He deserved it. He'd used her, differently than the Capitol had used Katniss, but he'd used her and her too sweet nature for his own comfort. He did that a lot, he realized, used the best of people against them, for his own purposes.

It's how he'd designed his bomb, after all.

Shaking his head, he tries to brush the thought away. Madge has told him more times than he could count that he needed to forgive himself.

For all his sins, he was alive, they were alive, and they couldn't waste that precious gift that had been denied, snatched away, from so many. To squander that would be another tragedy.

She'd told him that even if it took a lifetime, she'd be at his side, helping him through.

At the time, on the seawall in Four, it hadn't occurred to either of them that years later they'd be snuggled together, one child battering them in their sleep and another only weeks away from entering the world.

Blue eyes flutter open, Madge twists, rolls to face Gale, her face scrunching up.

"This baby has its foot in my rib."

Gale chuckles as she pushes down on her stomach, apparently trying to get the supposed foot from where it was lodged. After a minute she huffs, defeated.

Her lips in a little pucker, she looks up at Gale, "What are you doing?"

Shrugging, he reaches over Glen and runs his hand through her hair. "Thinking."

She squints, her eyes are still hazy with sleep, her skin is pale in the sliver of moonlight peaking through the window. "About what?"

His finger traces down her cheek, along her jaw, then back into her hair. "You. Me. How different thing are." He smiles at her half lidded gaze, "Did you ever think we'd end up together?"

Eyes closing, Madge is quiet, thinking.

When her eyes flicker open again, wider this time, they shimmer, "I never thought I'd end up with anyone."

That's ridiculous.

She was beautiful, smart, her father had held one of the highest positions of power in the District, along with the Head Peacekeeper. The thought that she'd have spent her life alone had never even crossed his mind.

"Why not?"

Her eyes close again, she rubs her nose and shrugs, "I didn't even have friends really, Gale. Any guy that would've even looked at me…I wouldn't've believed that they actually liked me. Probably would've thought they were after me for status or something stupid like that." A sad little smile flickers on her face, "No one could've convinced me different. It's why I didn't have any friends. People didn't want to get too close to me, and I didn't want to get too close to them. An ugly little cycle."

And it had left Madge in the cold.

Cool fingers run through Gale's hair, gently comb through it, "I thought you would end up with Katniss. The entire District did." Her eyebrows scrunch together, "You were so much alike, you were perfect for each other."

A little too perfect, Gale almost says.

He and Katniss were too much alike; they needed the calm, the gentleness they lacked, to smooth out their sharp edges. The edges they'd been forced to form on themselves to survive their harsh environment. Madge, and he supposed most of the Town people, had formed themselves into different shapes, smoother shapes, the kind that were able to navigate their different, but no less dangerous, no less perilous, lives.

Their life, the life they had now, was never supposed to be in the cards. But here they were, healthy, happy, alive.

Pushing himself up, Gale leans over Glen, presses a kiss to Madge's forehead, "Alike doesn't mean perfect."

Sometimes different did. Complementary, they made the other better. She softened his harsh edges and he taught her that fading into the background wasn't the only way to survive.

She swats away a tear that had fought its way out the corner of her eye, lets a soft smile flitter across her face.

A few more tears trickle down her cheeks, "I'm-I sometimes think I'm a bad person, because I have all this happiness, I got you and Glen and now this baby, and I didn't really earn it. I shouldn't even be here. I lived and so many other people died, and I'm happy and shouldn't I be sad?"

He opens his mouth to stop her, but she's on a babbling roll now.

"Sometimes I think about how things would be if Katniss hadn't Volunteered, if Prim's name hadn't been drawn." A little crease forms between her eyes, "I'd be alone and you'd be with Katniss, and I wonder if that wasn't how it was supposed to be."

Gale hates the thought of Madge growing old, alone and ignored. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth. She hadn't deserved that, wouldn't in any life. He hates that she still thinks about he and Katniss. He and Madge had talked on several occasions, and he'd assured her, promised her, he wasn't carrying a torch for the former 'Girl on Fire'. Sometimes, though, he forgets she has a lifetime of insecurity, unintentionally harbored by her parents and an entire District, that she's always fighting against.

While Gale fights his demons, his past cruelties, both intentional and not, Madge fights the feeling that she doesn't belong, that she was meant to die with her parents and is living a borrowed life.

He doesn't know what his life would've held if Prim's name hadn't been picked, if Katniss hadn't Volunteered, but he knows it wouldn't be half as good as what he has now.

"It doesn't matter," he tells her, running his fingers through her hair, enjoying the silky texture of it. "You deserve to be happy too." If Gale did, as she so often told him, then she definitely did. She'd earned it as much as he had. "And as far as possible lives go, this is definitely the better deal, don't you think?"

Tilting her head, she smiles, "I do, but do you?"

"Absolutely." And if there weren't a kid in the bed he'd show her just how much better a deal he thinks their life is.

In another life, maybe Madge was alone and Gale was with Katnisss, but not in this life.

This life may not have been the life he imagined when he was a teenager, but it was so much better.


	32. One Step Forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

"I still don't see why you can't just buy her some underwear."

Gale groaned, taking his brothers shopping with him for Madge a birthday present had been a colossal mistake. Vick was trying, he'd actually found one or two nice pairs of boots and a very nice blanket.

"She doesn't like the cold, right? Well, these'll keep her feet warm during the winter and she can wrap up in the blanket."

They were very thoughtful, Gale supposed, but they just weren't what he was looking for.

While Vick was moderately helpful, Rory seemed to make it his goal to be as useless as possible. He'd turn up holding various items of lingerie, waving them wildly around and asking Gale if they were Madge's sized.

Rory smirked, examining an especially lurid red bra, "Don't act like you don't know her measurements."

He had a pretty good idea of them, but he'd never admit that to Rory. Gale had spent enough time dancing with her, hugging her, running his hands along her waist, that he could've guessed her size. He was also familiar enough with women's undergarments to have made a reasonable choice, though that had been several years ago, after the Rebellion, after Katniss, after a lot of drinking, and a loss of inhibitions.

He snatched the bra from Rory, tossing it away, before smacking him hard on the back of the head. He should've asked his mother and Posy for advice.

#######

They finally left the boutiques, on the strip in the Seat of District Two, which he'd been told by several of the men at the military complex he was working at was the best bet for finding a present for his 'yeah-not-your-girlfriend'. Evidently, they were wrong.

Vick directed them to a little café he, Rory, and some of their friends had visited during a school outing for coffee to soothe Gale's frazzled nerves.

"I just want to get her something nice," he grumbled, running his hand over his face. For some reason, Gale didn't get the impression she'd had very many truly happy birthdays in her life, with her sick mother, busy father, and few friends.

"She won't even care what you get her, Gale, she'll probably just be glad you remembered," Vick told him.

Gale narrowed his eyes, "What do you mean 'just be glad you remembered'? I remembered last year, I just wasn't in the District."

He'd called her and wished her a happy birthday, then he'd taken her to dinner the first chance he'd gotten.

Vick raised his hands, "I know, and she loved that. Getting her something will just be gravy to her."

Gale sighed, he shouldn't get upset with Vick. If anyone was going to be a pain about this, it was Rory, and he seemed more interested in flirting with the redhead two tables over.

The little waitress appeared, balancing their lunch on her arms and sitting them all down with a dazzling smile that lingered on Gale. Rory rolled his eyes.

With another sigh Gale picked up his sandwich, part of the guts falling out the back.

"Damn it!" He started reassembling it on the little plate, a chipped looking thing with a blue pattern along the edge. He frowned, mumbling to himself, "Where have I seen these before?"

Rory tore his eyes away from the redhead, "They're the same ones the Mayor use to have."

Gale stared at the plate a little longer, "How do you remember that?"

"Dropped one after a dinner, when we were 'cousins' during the last…you know. Spent an hour picking pieces of it up outta the carpet with mom glaring at me."

Vick taps his own plate, nodding, "And I ate off these plates after school almost every day for a year. I remember them pretty well."

Gale had never paid much attention to the Undersees' plates, other than to note they were probably expensive. He ran a finger around the edge.

"I guess most government officials had their houses stocked by the Capitol. They all had the same plates, same sheets, same wallpaper…the families had very little say in any of it. Madge told me once they could decorate their bedrooms, but that was it. I recognized these last time we were here and apparently this place bought them when one of the local magistrates' house was liquidated. "

Gale thought of the little apartment Madge shared with her friend, how she loved it and was always telling him about changes they'd made to the kitchen and living area; it hadn't really occurred to him, though, that she might've loved it so much because it was hers. Her whole life had been provided, coldly and uniformly, but now she was making her way, slowly, to a kind of independence.

All her nothingness, all the things she'd known as a child, though, had been destroyed during the bombing. She'd escaped with the clothes on her back and nothing else. Gale had his family; Madge had nothing and no one. The Capitol had made sure of that her entire life.

She'd always bore it well. Her kindness hadn't wavered, even toward him. Gale supposes her father, with all his fruitless attempts to improve the condition of the District, had taught her unwavering dedication even to people who didn't seem to appreciate it.

Madge had grown up in a house that wasn't hers, filled with things that weren't hers. As little as he'd had, it was his, he'd earned it. Madge hadn't even had an opportunity to earn her place; no one would've given her one, not even Gale back then.

He picked the plate up and dusted the crumbs of his sandwich off.

#######

Gale met her at a stand selling iced tea.

"Hello, handsome, wanna swig?" Katy-Jo Lewes offered him a tall glass filled with ice and tea. She jiggled it enticingly.

Madge pulled her smock, advertizing their stand, off and over her head. It caught at the bottom of her dress, hiking it up mid thigh. Gale tried not to look, tried to keep his eyes off the several extra inches of pale skin that became exposed for just a few seconds, but his eyes had a mind of their own. They widened and followed Madge's fingers as they pushed her dress back into place. It wasn't until he heard a couple of boys snickering, that he tore his gaze away to glare at the little pair of bastards.

He made a threatening hand gesture toward them, letting them know he was the only one that got to oogle her.

They'd run off, probably to change their pants, when Madge climbed under the counter and popped up beside him. He pulled her into a hug, pressing her flush to him, and wrapping his arms protectively around her. He'd dare any more of those brats to so much as glance at her.

She pulled back, "How do you like my party?"

Gale looked around at the 'party'.

District Ten had an obsession with having festivals, they felt it encouraged people to mix, prevent 'bad blood' from cropping up, something Gale could only roll his eyes at. He didn't understand it and felt they were just being weird. This year the summer festival, ushering in the horribly humid midyear that afflicted the plains, fell on Madge's birthday.

He nodded, taking in several stands selling 'chicken fried frog legs' and 'chicken fried turtle bits' and a 'rattlesnake fry'.

"Appetizing."

Madge snorted, burying her face in his chest. She hated the variety of meats that often cropped up in her chosen District. Like all the Districts, Ten had been denied the fruits of their labors while under Capitol control. Like Gale, the people had taken to poaching. They'd hunted things he understood, like rabbit, squirrel, and deer, as well as things he could stomach, but didn't feel had much of an appeal.

"I'll buy you," he squinted up at a sign near them, "a 'spicy gator fritter'."

She gagged.

They waved to her friend and headed off. Gale snaked his hand around her waist, rested his thumb at the crest of her hip and splaying his palm and fingers below. He kept pushing his limits, waiting for her to tell him off as she'd laughingly done once, but she seemed to like what she termed his 'handsy' behavior. She also shared the bed with him when he was able to take her on trips. He had to get up early on those days, he always seemed to find himself waking on top of her, face pressed to her neck or chest, hands cupping and holding things they really shouldn't have been cupping or holding. She was aware of his using her as a human body pillow, had laughed about it on more than one occasion, but he was afraid if she woke to find what his less than idle hands were trying to do, she'd be less than understanding.

Still, he took her acceptance as a hopeful sign that she would, maybe, someday, want to move their painfully close relationship a little bit closer.

There was music piping, out and up to the starry night sky, nostalgic but uplifting, a man with a calming voice crooned about a wonderful world. Madge's arm found its way around his waist and her head nestled against his chest as they explored the games, bizarre foods, and watched a group of teenagers dance.

Gale dragged her out to the dirt dance floor and twirled her, mimicking the others, then pulled her against him, swaying with the music.

His fingers traced up the curve of her back, setting between her shoulders. He debated dipping down, kissing her breathless when the music ended, the crush of her body was almost too much. He'd thought about doing it for ages, mulled it over, decided for it, but he was leaving the next morning and didn't want to kiss her and leave her confused. It would have to wait until he had more time.

Then she pulled back, put her hand out to him.

"Walk me home?"

He hadn't even noticed the festival was winding down; several of the vendors had shut up for the night.

His rough hand took her much softer one, tugged her along, and they silently made the short trip back to her apartment.

She was about to bid him goodbye, lips turned up and mouth opened to say the words as she turned to him, when Gale stopped her.

"I, uh, got you something."

"Oh, Gale you shouldn-"

He shook his head and ran back to the truck he'd been given while in the District, opening the passenger door and digging around the floorboard.

He jogged back to her and held out his gift. He'd been told about special paper, used specifically for presents, but when he'd gone to the little specialty shop and found it, he couldn't bring himself to pay for paper that's sole purpose was to be ripped to pieces. He had the money, but it turned his stomach, it was so wasteful.

Instead he'd stolen the pillowcase from the hotel in District One that he'd been staying in when he found it. He paid enough for the room, too much in his mind, he felt that entitled him to take anything from it that wasn't nailed down.

Carefully, she unfolded the end and opened it, reached her arm in and pulled out a small bowl, white with a blue pattern and a few chips on one of the sides.

After he'd tried, and failed, to leave money and take the little plate from the coffee shop, an act that had resulted in his lifetime ban from the place, Gale had started a search for another.

It was a lot harder than he'd expected, to find what must've been a very common item in the homes of so many government officials. Many of the mayors hadn't been quite as benevolent as Mayor Undersee, and during the fighting many of their houses had been destroyed, along with the contents and the occupants. The ones that hadn't been wasted beyond recognition were auctioned off to fund the new government. It had been a small miracle for Gale to find the lone little bowl, exactly like the one he'd eaten blueberry ice cream out of so long ago.

Madge dropped the pillowcase and rested the bowl between her hands, fingers gently gripping it.

He wasn't sure how she would react to it. He'd hoped it didn't trigger painful memories.

"It's not one of our bowls?"

Gale shook his head, "They, the government houses, all had the same plates, right? I found it."

Her lip was puckered, looked to soft and sad, her eyes shone in the pale moon light.

"I understand, if it upsets you, but I thought you might want it, want to actually own it. Maybe as a reminder or maybe to smash. I'd understand that. They took so much from you, isolated you, if you wanted to break it into a million pieces it might be…"

He wasn't sure what it might be until she smiled.

"Cathartic?"

Gale nodded, watched her continue to inspect the little bowl.

"My mother didn't like them, always thought it looked like bugs on them, and Mrs. Oberst hatedthem, said they were too plain for such a high ranking family." Madge smiled fondly at it, "I never thought they were so bad."

Her eyes flicker from it and lock with Gale's, her expression is so soft he almost forgets to breathe.

"I'll keep it as a reminder. My life, my parents, all of it happened. It wasn't another life, not really."

It was a tangible memory.

She stepped forward, up onto her toes. Her face brushed past his and her arms wrapped around his neck, "Thank you. I think it's the best birthday present I've ever gotten."

Gale's arms encase her, press her to him once more. He buries his face in her hair and inhales, soap and honey, her raspberry shampoo, the heat of her skin. It would be easy, too easy, to turn his head, catch her lips with his own as she dropped back to her feet. If only he had more time…

Madge releases his neck, drops back to her heals and beams at him.

He reaches out and brushes a stray hair from her face, running his finger down her jaw after he tucks it behind her ear. "You're welcome."

They stand there, a little awkwardly, both knowing he should go but neither wanting to be the one to say so. Finally, Gale sighs.

"Guess I should head out."

She nods, "Yeah, when will you be back?"

There's a note of eagerness to her words that makes him a little hopeful that when he finally does have the time she'll be just as receptive to his lips as she was to a stupid bowl.

"Next week, the hovercraft port, I called you about it."

She let out a bubble of nervous laughter, "Oh, yeah."

Gale backed up to his truck, waved goodbye, and watched her in his rearview mirror, still clutching her bowl to her chest, as he drove away.

Maybe next time. He thought with a small smile.

His brothers hadn't been so bad at being shopping helpers after all, they'd at least led him to the right decision.


	33. Promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale was very self-conscious of his scars.

He kept them hidden, Madge had noticed, carefully keeping his back to her if he happened to change shirts when she was in the room, despite the fact that he knew she was aware of their existence.

Then, as suddenly as he'd confessed that it was his design that had killed Prim, told her he'd driven the wedge between he and Katniss, they were down at the beach in the pale blue and pink light of the early morning and he was pealing his shirt off.

It was warm, not muggy hot and uncomfortable like the inner plains, but it was definitely going to be, as Katy-Jo Lewes called it, a 'flip-flop and tank top kinda day'. Whatever that meant.

Madge could see the many ridges, discolored and raised, all along his back. They criss-crossed and stretched across his back in a harsh lattice, painfully pulling taut as he tensed, turned to look at her.

He seemed to be waiting for judgment, his gray eyes shadowed under his sand sprayed hair.

"Pretty horrible, aren't they?"

They were, there was no denying that. Though his back no longer looked like the bloody beef District Ten was so known for, it still sent chills up Madge's spine. She could remember the sound of Thread's whip on Gale's skin, tearing it and shredding it, blood splattering, painting the ground crimson, and that horrible metallic smell that had caught on the wind…

She remembered the freezing wind and snow on her face as she ran, her mother's morphling under her arm, the taste of her own blood on her lips when the harsh weather chapped them to bleeding.

His scars were horrible, but not for the reason he thought.

The Gale Hawthorne that had lived in District Twelve had been proud. He was handsome, had somecharm, and he knew when to use it.

The Gale in the shadow of the Rebellion, though, was muted, didn't flirt and smile. He was still sure of himself, still commanded respect, but lacked the bravado, was quieter, at least to Madge's ears.

He'd grown up.

Not that he hadn't always been mature, he'd had to far earlier than he should've, but he hadn't grown up back in District Twelve.

He'd been the head of his household, supported his mother, brothers, and sister, he'd braved the lands outside the fences, he'd even saved most of the District during the bombings, but Madge had seen firsthand that Gale hadn't entirely given up his childish ways back in their home District.

That Gale had been rude, judgmental, had a chip on his shoulder…not that he hadn't deserved to, his life had been anything but easy, but it had cut at Madge from an early age. She hadn't picked her lot in life anymore than he had. Why did he, or anyone else for that matter, feel the need to belittle her existence?

The man that she had become friends with, though, had dampened his fire. He no longer threatened to burn the country with his anger, instead he'd burned himself.

It was a bitter lesson, Madge knew, to learn that your greatest strength was also your most profound weakness.

The scars on his back, put there by one of the cruelest men Madge had ever met first hand, were just a physical manifestation of what she knew was festering in his mind.

Gale thought he deserved his scars, his marks. Shame had taken the place of humility.

"They're part of you," she finally said. Crossing her arms over her chest she walked slowly to him, her feet sinking in the soft sands of the beach seeping between her toes.

When she reached him, he turned, stared out across the ocean. Madge leaned into him, let her head come to a rest on his shoulder.

"They're horrible," he said again. His eyes shone in the golden morning light bouncing off the waves.

He'd done some terrible things, been led down the wrong path, Madge knew that, he'd trusted her enough to tell her about his sins. Now he was trusting her enough to show her his scars, the ones he'd been given unfairly, given for trying to survive.

Her heart sped up a little at the thought, that Gale trusted her enough to bare his soul and his tattered back to her. They were closer than she thought, or maybe there just wasn't anyone left in his life to confess to. Either way, she knew she was being given a special gift, Gale still wasn't one to let his guard down easily. After everything that had happened to him, she almost believed he was less trusting even than he had been.

"They're part of you," she finally said. "They're part of you, but don't let them be all there is to you, okay?"

For a minute he didn't respond, just stared out at the lapping waves as they inch towards them. Then, without a word, his arm came up around her, came to a rest around her bare shoulders. The warmth it provided was pleasant against the sea spray and the coolness of the damp morning air.

Before she knew what he was doing, his face was buried in her loose hair.

"Thank you."

Madge wasn't sure what he was thanking her for, her words or her not being repulsed by what he'd shown her, but she didn't question it.

Instead she just wrapped her arm around his waist, letting her fingers graze along the lowest ridges and feeling him shiver at the contact.

When she was every bit as wrapped around him as he was her, she sighed. He was more than his scars, he didn't have to be ashamed of them, self-conscious of them. He hadn't deserved them when he'd received them back in Twelve and he didn't deserve to suffer for them now, they were just another part of him. She didn't know how, but she was going to help him see that.

That was a problem she could solve slowly, she thought.

A problem, she promised both of them, she would spend the rest of their lives solving


	34. Brotherly Conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
> 
> A/N-This was a scene that I'd started when 'Down the Rabbit Hole' was from two points of view, which was only for about five seconds. I changed it and expanded it a bit while writing 'The Talk' and let it be a little more cutsie. I'm putting it here mostly because I don't really know where else to put it and I like it too much to not include it.

Gale sat uncomfortably slouched on the couch. His mother was cleaning Posy's face, getting her ready to head to the Everdeens' to watch the scores. Rory and Vick were engrossed in a card game. Gale's stomach was in knots.

Vick threw his cards down with a grin, "I win again!"

Rory looked at the cards in disgust before huffing, "This game is stupid."

"You just don't like it 'cause you're losing."

"You're only any good at it because your girlfriend taught you."

"Uh-uh!"

"Uh-hu!"

Gale felt momentarily pulled from his constant worry about the impending scores that only the prospect of tormenting a younger sibling can provide.

"Girlfriend? Aren't you a little young for a girlfriend?" Gale leans forward, smirking at his youngest brother.

"She's not my girlfriend. She's just my friend." Vick shoots Rory a sharp look, "You're just jealous because you're afraid of girls-"

"Am not!" Rory looks appropriately scandalized. He turns to Gale for support, "I am not afraid of girls."

Gale has seen Rory's attempts to talk to girls and feels inclined to agree with Vick on this point. Before he can say anything for or against Rory's abilities with the female population his brother is barreling on, "Besides, you shouldn't hang out with her anyways. She's just a snobby rich girl and you're just a hobby to her. Gale agrees with me, don't you Gale?"

Gale has no idea what you're talking about. He gives his brother a confused look, "Your friend is some town girl?"

"Some town girl?" Rory huffs, "It's the Mayor's daughter."

The sluggish gears in the back of Gale's mind begin whirling to life and he looks at his youngest brother. Vick's color is darkening, none of them really blush but they do darken under normal stress. He's looking anywhere but at Gale.

When he'd come home the night before to his stewed rabbit with vegetables he'd been curious about them, but when he'd asked his mother had only said Vick's 'friend' had sent them home with him. At the time he'd assumed someone had finally had some luck getting something to grow in the coal dust coated ground, now he realized, with a sickening drop in his stomach, that they'd come from the Undersees' garden. Should have known, who else has a damned garden in this forsaken place?

"That's where you've been going after school?" Gale glowers down at the boy.

Vick lifts his chin, "Yeah. I like hanging out with Madge. She's nice to me and lets me help and listens to me." He glares over at Rory, "She doesn't treat me like a little kid."

"You are a little kid," Gale tells him. "And you don't need to be hanging around with Undersee."

"Why not?"

Why not? Gale narrows his gaze. There were a million reasons why not. She's rich and spoiled and superior. She has no idea what real life was like. She probably views Vick as some kind of charity case, just like Prim and Mrs. Everdeen. She's beyond useless and she's close to the Capitol and who knows what treasonous thing Gale's said that Vick might accidentally repeat. He can't seem to get his mouth to work properly though and all he does is stare irritably at Vick.

His youngest brother takes this as some kind of confirmation that Gale has no good reason for him to stay away from Undersee so he crosses his arms and turns to their mother. "Mom doesn't think me being friends with Madge is bad."

Gale's mother smiles over at her youngest son as she tugs Posy's dark hair into pigtails, "Of course not."

Gale shoots his mother an irritable look which she counters with raised eyebrows that seem to say drop it so he does. For the time being.

He flops back on the couch and crosses his arms. Vick frowns at him.

"She's really nice. She lets me help her weed the garden and she makes me tea and she smells pretty."

"You can't smell 'pretty', Vick," Rory tells him snottily.

"Well she does."

Gale really doesn't care one way or another how Undersee smells, and he tries to ignore his brothers as they argue it out.

"-and she's soft. Like a big pillow."

Gale's eyes widen at that. That particular statement needed further elaboration. "What?"

Vick is the picture of innocence, "I gave her a hug, and she's all squishy."

Rory snorted, "It's cause she's got boobs, you idiot."

For a moment Vick just frowns, unsure exactly what Rory has said, then his color deepens again, "That's not what I meant!"

Rory doesn't hear him though, he's dissolved into a fit of unmanly giggles. Vick's face scrunches up and he throws himself over the table and onto Rory, little fists pummeling any little bit of his brother he can get to.

"Boys!" His mother yells, "Stop that! Both of you!"

She leaves Posy standing on the kitchen chair while she strides over and pulls Rory from Vick's furious grasp. Gale picks his youngest brother up and exchanges a look with his mother: she'll deal with Rory, and he can deal with Vick.

He carries Vick into their shared room, depositing him on the bed. He's scuffed up and has a little snarl still on his lips.

He makes to jump up, go back out and finish his tussle with Rory, but Gale pushes him back onto the bed.

"Stay there till you calm down," he tells him.

Vick crosses his arms and sulks, tracks of furious tears dried on his face. Gale grabs a rag and tries to clean him up.

"I'm fine," Vick pushes it away and turns his head.

Gale sighs and flops down on the bed beside him. He rolls to his side. "You and Undersee, huh?"

Vick glares at him, his long eyelashes still have flecks of tears on them, "You have a friend that's a girl, why can't I"

"That's…different."

His and Katniss' friendship, their possibly more, if, when she came back from the Games, wasn't at issue. Katniss was like them. She understood them, their life, the way things were. Undersee didn't. She couldn't.

She wasn't bad, Gale would admit that. She was decent, he would even give her that. But she wasn't one of them. She didn't have that essential need that they did.

He and Katniss understood each other, they'd survived together. Saved each other, in a sense.

What had Undersee done for Vick that was in anyway close to that?

"How?" Vick flopped over, on his stomach, and looked at Gale, wide eyed and sincere. "She's nice. We talk and she even told me to be nice to you. That you're having a hard time. And she listens to me, and nobody listens to me."

Gale arches his eyebrows, "I'm listening to you right now aren't I?"

Vick rolls his eyes, "Just 'cause you have to. 'Cause I was kicking Rory's butt."

Before he can stop it, a laugh burst out of Gale's chest. Vick really had been walloping Rory.

He stops laughing and grins a Vick, "Yeah, well, no more kicking his butt. It upsets mom." His smile shrinks a little, "And I'm always here to listen, Vick. You guys are important to me and I want to be there for you."

"You're busy…"

"I'm not too busy for you, okay?"

Vick bites his lip and nods, staring at the mattress. He looks back up at Gale, "I-I can still talk to Madge too, though, right?"

Whether it's the way she smells, pretty or otherwise, or the fact that his baby brother is becoming somewhat aware of female anatomy, which Gale sincerely hopes isn't the case for a few years, Rory is bad enough, Undersee has him in some kind of snare.

He pats Vick on the head, then ruffles his hair.

"Fine, talk to Undersee. But, uh," he frowns as he sits up to get off the bed, "no more hugging her, or smelling her, or, uh, anything else, okay?"

Vick rolls his eyes again, "I don't tryto smell her. I just do." He looks thoughtful for a minute, "And I think she needs hugs, she always seems so sad."

They walk the few steps across the tiny room to the door. Vick already knows he and Rory are going to have to apologize to one another, this was just a cool down.

Vick looks up at Gale, "You should hug her sometime, she's not too bad at it, and she really is soft. You'd like it."

Gale's eyebrows arch up. He probably would like it. In fact he's certain he would. A little too much. He isn't blind and he's perfectly aware of female anatomy. Though judging by the way Vick said it, Gale doesn't think his brother has as much a gutter-mind as he and Rory apparently do.

"I'll think about it," he tells Vick as he gives him a little scoot out the door.

They need to get this apologizing done so they can head to the Everdeens.


	35. Never Too Late

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

"Look daddy, I caughted a big one!"

Glen holds his fishing line up, hoisting the fish, which is only slightly larger than the minnow he'd been using as bait. He grins at Gale as he awaits his praise.

"Good job, buddy," Gale takes the little fish and removes it from the hook. "But I think we've caught enough for the day. We'll let this one go, okay?"

For a second Glen stares at the fish, which is desperately trying to flop from Gale's grasp, then smiles, "Can I put him back?"

Glad to have avoided a tantrum, Gale is pretty sure he'd have had a fit if his father had wanted to throw a fish he'd caught back when he was Glen's age, he hands the fish to his son, watches as he carefully puts it back in the shallow water at the edge of the pond.

As Glen is waving goodbye to 'fishy' Gale stumbles his weary bones to where Madge is sitting. She's spread a blanket out under a large shady tree, has the baby nestled in her crossed legs.

"Aw, you made him let that whopper go," she teases as Gale flops down beside her.

He shoots her a glare before reaching and taking the baby from her. Once he has her settled in the crook of his arm, still soundly sleeping, he sighs.

"I'm glad he got your temperament." Glen is an easy child, doesn't get mad easily or have fits. Gale remembers he and Rory, Vick and Posy, all having spectacular tempers when they were younger, though from what Gale can tell only Vick seems to have grown out of that particular trait.

"I hope she's good too," he mutters, more to himself than to Madge. He doesn't want their daughter to grow into his quick irritability.

Madge makes a face, "I don't think you're so bad."

She should, he'll be eternally grateful she doesn't, but he knows down in the darkest part of his soul that she should. He leans down and presses a kiss to the baby's head. She squirms a little, but quickly calms.

"I would've had a meltdown if my dad had released one of my fishes when I was little."

"When you were little you were starving. It wouldn't have been practical to let any fish go," she points out reasonably.

While that's true, it doesn't change Gale's mind. "I'd still rather have them be like you."

Madge sighs, reaches across his lap, runs a finger down the baby's face before looking out at Glen who'd started playing some game with an imaginary audience. Her wide blue eyes flicker back to Gale for a minute before settling back on Glen.

"I didn't get to throw tantrums when I was little." A sad little smile forms on her lips, "Who would I have thrown them for? My mother? She wouldn't have noticed half the time and it would've only upset her the other half. I was on my best behavior when my dad was home because I was desperate to spend time with him, didn't want to be punished and miss a minute of his time. The only person I could throw them with was Mrs. Oberst, and…well, you met her." A little chuckle escapes her lips, "I learned pretty quick raising my voice, stomping my feet, having a fit wouldn't get me anywhere."

"They didn't get me anywhere, either," Gale reminds her.

She shrugs, "But your parents let you express your frustration. You could afford to." A little crease forms between her eyes, "I had to be on my best behavior all the time. You didn't put a toe out of line, say what you wanted, act poorly when you could be hosting government officials at any minute."

Sometimes Gale forgets to appreciate that despite growing up with a full belly and warm clothes, Madge was neglected for the good of the District, however little good that was. He still has to prompt her, force her to let her anger and annoyance out. She'd spent most of her youth learning to repress those particular feelings, after all.

As hard as it has been for Gale to dampen his temper, it's been just as difficult for Madge to let hers flare.

He wishes he had been kinder to her, when they'd been younger, wishes he'd known how hard she was trying to protect them all, how her seemingly unflappable exterior, her distant demeanor, were all part of her act. The show she was constantly at to keep the ever present eyes of the Capitol from looking too closely at the District's top family, which would have put the entire District in jeopardy.

Gale reaches with his free hand, pulls Madge to him, presses a kiss to her temple.

"I'm sorry."

He's sorry he hadn't known how suppressed she'd been, how hard she'd worked to keep people who didn't spare her a second thought safe, how hurt she was by the dark looks and cold words tossed her way so easily.

He's sorry he didn't see her when she was invisible.

Despite being a lowly miner, a poacher, a criminal, Gale had never been ignored, never been told he couldn't be upset about his lot in life, even if he'd been told not to, knew better than to, advertise his displeasures with his lot in life.

When he'd been paraded in front of the cameras, first as Katniss' cousin, then as…whatever the Rebellion had labeled him as, he'd hated it, hated being reduced to a prop in someone else's life.

He couldn't have, still can't imagine how Madge has managed to make it out of her childhood as stable as she is when being a prop was her almost exclusive role in life.

"You learn to smile through everything when you're a politician's child," she'd told him once, when he'd asked her how she could stand to be in the presence of so many vile people. "You bite your tongue, you swallow down the bile, and you smile as brightly as you can. You never let them see you break."

Gale still thinks she ties her worth to her ability to bare any situation with a pleasant smile and a vacant look at times. Another wish, he supposes, of his, that he might, someday, be able to get her to stop using that empty look when confronted by unpleasant situations.

Madge kisses his rough cheek, sighs against his skin, "It isn't anything to be sorry for. Things were how they were." She presses her palm to his cheek, forces him to look at her, "But you can't compare how Glen is, how Savanna may or may not turn out to be, to how we were. They're growing up under completely different circumstances, they'll, hopefully, never see fishing as life or death. Hopefully, they'll only ever see it as a fun thing to do with their daddy. Setting snares, learning the bow, will just be hobbies to them. Letting a small fish go isn't going to mean the difference between eating and starving to them like it did you. There's no reason for them to be upset by it, understand?"

He knows she can't see it, that she doesn't see the best of her is reflected in the little boy currently giggling and attempting to catch a frog that's hopping with increasing gusto into the trees to their right, he knows she'd probably say the same thing to him, and maybe she's right. Maybe Glen and Savanna are the pure distillation of what Gale and Madge's childhood had beaten out of them, maybe they're going to be the combination of what goodness they both could have had if they'd lived different lives.

Instead of trying to point it out to her, that with her words she'd just proved his point, that's she's the calm to his hateful fire, especially when it burns Gale himself, that she's where their son got his sweet disposition, Gale pulls her closer, presses a kiss into her soft hair.

"Thank you."

He isn't sure what higher power saw fit to lead him to her, made her understanding enough to look past his many failings and remind him of the good in himself, but he hopes that all the positives, all the rights he's tried to do since the Rebellion have made him worthy.

A sad little smile flickers on her lips, "Thank you." She sniffles, "It's nice to say it out loud sometimes. You know, the things I have to tell myself all the time. That this isn't the world we grew up in. Glen will turn his toy box over sometimes, throw all his stuff across his floor and I have to bite back Mrs. Oberst's words, keep myself from telling him to clean up his mess before his father gets home or they'll be hell to pay. I think of all the people that might come over, judge what they see…" Gale watches as a tear blinks out of her eye, tries to escape down her cheek only to be swiped away by the back of her hand, "I don't want to raise my children like that, I won't, but that's my first instinct because that's how I was raised. I hate that about me, and I fight it."

Gale squeezes her.

"You're a good mother," her murmurs into her hair. "If you weren't you wouldn't fight so hard."

She loves her babies and she's battling against her horrible childhood to keep them from learning to distance themselves, repress themselves, like Madge had.

"And you're a good father. Your parents taught you how to be a good parent, and you're constantly teaching me, because mine couldn't." She lets a watery smile push her cheeks up, make little creases under her eyes, as she looks back out at Glen, who'd caught the little frog and is trying to have what appears to be a very serious discussion with it. "Neither one of us had idyllic childhoods, but fighting against the past is all we can do, and I think we just need to keep reminding each other that."

They aren't perfect and they won't be perfect parents, but their children have the benefit of growing up without the Capitol creating an even more imperfect world.

"I love you," he murmurs into her hair again.

"Love you, too," she whispers as she takes his hand, kisses the back of it.

Glen suddenly stumbles over, holding his newly caught frog out for his parents' inspection.

"Look, I name-ed him Trevor." He grins, little dimples on full display, "Can I keep him? Please?"

Madge makes a face and Gale has to fight off a bark of laughter at the expression. She shoots him a look and Gale is suddenly aware she's doing some very quick thinking.

"I suppose, but remember Katy-Jo Lewes is coming in a few weeks and she likes frog legs so you'll have to keep a veryclose eye on him around her."

Glen frowns, looks down at the struggling frog in his muddy hands, seemingly rethinking his new pet.

"I let him go. I don' wan' Katy-Jo Lewes t'eat him."

Before Madge can even nod her approval of his decision he's jogging off, back to the muddy patch he'd caught 'Trevor' in.

Gale pinches Madge's hip, "That was a little devious, manipulating a little kid like that."

She snorts, "I didn't manipulate him, I just pointed out that we have a somewhat indiscriminate omnivore coming and he would be putting dear froggy in danger."

Her mind is a dangerous place, Gale thinks, mostly because of her childhood. It's also pretty amazing.

"While I'm teaching you to be a parent you can teach me some of your mind tricks. They might come in handy at work." If he can get those morons in charge of updating the rail system to listen to logic as well as Madge got Glen to, his life would be a lot easier. Glen might be a toddler, but he's definitely more cunning than those idiots, Madge's mind tricks should work like a dream on them.

Madge takes him by the chin, pulls him closer as she grins, "I think that's a fair exchange."


	36. Remembrance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Twelve's new cemetery, new memorial, is simple.

It's built at the edge of what used to be the Town, at the edge of the Seam, along the meeting point for the two halves of the now ruined District.

Trees have been planted, most are little more than saplings, barely providing shade for the few visitors that are there on the day Madge and Gale are. Towards the back, though, there are older, stronger ones, trees that had somehow managed to survive the bombing. They're charred, missing limbs and have bald patches here and there, but they still stand tall. The sprigs of new growth on their remaining branches held high, proving to all those that see them that the Capitol had tried its best to destroy them, but that it hadn't. It couldn't.

Madge's eyes try to focus on the stones, each carefully sculpted in Two, etched with the name of one of Twelve's former residents. They're flat, dark rocks, they almost look like stepping stones from the entry. Madge finds that strangely appropriate.

Twelve had been used as a launch pad for the Rebellion, after all.

They're grouped by the year they died, oldest at the front, newest, the victims of the bombing, towards the back.

Gale's gray eyes flicker over the horizon. He hadn't had to come, Madge had told him that she could do this if it was too much for him, but he'd insisted.

"I know you can do it. I know you don't need me to hold your hand," he'd sighed, run a hand over his face, "but you don't have to do it by yourself. You shouldn't have to."

She's grateful for his chivalry, but she thinks, as she sees his eyes begin to shimmer, that maybe he'd needed to see it too. Maybe he needed her to hold his hand.

He presses his fingers to his eyes, they come away dampened, not that he would tell her. She doesn't ask, it would only embarrass him.

Thinking maybe she needs to give him a moment of privacy, Madge takes the first few tentative steps onto the grounds.

Her eyes wander along the rows, the names of people who'd died long before she'd even been born.

The first name she recognizes is 'Delmond Seward', the oldest Victor from Twelve, Mr. Abernathy's former Mentor. Unlike most of the stones, which have broken chains chiseled into them, above his name is a small crown, just barely discernible to Madge's eyes. She stares at it for several minutes, wondering what horrible things he'd been forced to do, or refused to do, before he'd finally died, frozen during one of Twelve's painfully cold winters while out searching for his beloved dog.

Taking a breath, Madge follows the path a little deeper, several years in, and finds a name she knows all too well.

'Maysilee Donner'.

Someone has left daisies on her stone, which has a broken branch above her name. She's nestled beside the two other children Reaped with her all those years ago. No daisies rest on their stones though.

Madge gives the name a soft look.

For so much of her life Madge had resented the name 'Maysilee Donner'. It was a ghost's name, a spirit that held her mother down, kept Matilda Undersee from being a parent. It was an unfair thought, Madge knows that now. Maysilee was a victim, had been murdered on national television for no reason other than the Capitol's amusement, but as a child all she had known was that the possessor of that name was slowly crushing her mother.

A few tears spill down her cheeks, trickle down to her chin, and she swats them away. She wonders, briefly, where her grandmother's grave, a woman that had died during childbirth, is.

It would've been a kindness, Madge thinks, to group the stones by family. The Donners could've been whole for the first time.

Wiping her eyes on the back of her hand, Madge looks around.

Gale has wandered further in, has stopped several rows in and over from Madge's aunt's stone.

Carefully, Madge picks her way across the cemetery, the memorial, to where Gale stands.

She stops, frozen in her tracks, when she sees the name.

'Asher Hawthorne'.

Gale's cheeks are wet, smeared with his tears. He doesn't notice Madge as he crouches down, reaches to the stone and runs his hand over the name, wipes away imaginary dust.

Quietly, Madge takes a few steps to him, drops to her knees beside him. Not breathing a word, she twines her arm with his, laces their fingers before lifting his hand to her lips and pressing a quick kiss to his knuckles, then letting her head come to a rest against his shoulder

"He would've liked you," Gale says softly, a little thickly. He rubs his nose, tries to hide the tracks of his tears by rubbing his face again, "He would've told me I was an idiot for not liking you earlier."

Madge chuckles, "Sounds like he and I would've had a lot in common then."

A garbled little laugh sputters out of Gale's throat, makes him sound like he's choking. His moist eyes, red rimmed and a little blood shot, flicker down, meet Madge's.

He jerks forward, presses a kiss to her forehead, lets his lips linger there for a few moments, his warm breath rustling her hair, skimming along her scalp. She shivers and he bends his head, puts his forehead to hers and locks their eyes. There are flecks of tears still clinging to his eyelashes.

"I wish he could've met Posy, seen Rory and Vick grow up," he swallows, his throat bobs slowly. "I wish he could've met you."

Madge had long ago learned that wishes were more or less futile. That was the reality of life under the thumb of the Capitol. Nothing in your life was ever your own, everything had strings attached and eyes watching. Every action had consequences, and they were never pleasant. Hoping, wishing for anything else was a pointless venture.

They're in a shiny new world now, though, and she's trying to unlearn those hard learned lessons of her childhood, trying to let the jadedness and sadness that had ruled her life go.

Hope, which had been such a dangerous thing, isn't a threat anymore. Before the fall of the Capitol she never would've dreamed she would end up with Gale, never would've hoped for it, that would only have led to more heartache than she already had. Dashed hopes ruined lives, led to bitter souls and angry thoughts, rash actions that got people hurt, things she couldn't've afforded when she'd been the Mayor's daughter.

So she wishes Mr. Hawthorne could've met his daughter, watched his youngest sons grow, met Madge, even though they're wishes as unattainable as the stars.

"I wish it didn't hurt so much," he murmurs.

Madge drops back, lets her bottom rest against her heels as her knees sink deeper into the soft ground.

She understands what he means, the ache that takes his breath away is stinging in her chest too. She doesn't wish it away though.

"I wouldn't wish away the hurt," she tells him. When he frowns, clearly not understanding what she's saying, Madge gives him a watery smile. "Hurting comes and goes, gets better and worse, but we need it." She looks over at Mr. Hawthorne's grave. "My mother only ever focused on the hurt, she forgot there was a reason she could hurt. You can't feel that kind of pain unless you've felt something just as wonderful."

It's a beautiful kind of ache, Madge thinks, to hurt for love. She wishes someone could've told her mother that, that she could've told her mother that. It was a hard learned lesson, though, one Madge has only just learned herself.

For a few minutes Gale is quiet. His eyes are focused on his father's stone, blinking away tears. Then he sighs.

"I think you're right."

She forces a smile, "Of course I am."

He chuckles, it warms her inside out, fills her with a sense of accomplishment.

They sit there for a few more silent minutes before Gale stands, stretches, then reaches out, offering her his hand.

Grabbing it, she lets him pull her to her feet before he wraps his arms around her, buries his face in her hair, and tangles his fingers in it, begins toying with the ends.

"Let's find your parents."

#######

Madge detours back in the yearly rows to find her Poppa's grave, leaves a few peppermint candies at the edge, they were his favorite, before she and Gale venture to the far back of the cemetery.

She finds Mrs. Oberst's stone first, beside her daughter's and her grandchildren's. It's strange, seeing 'Melisent Oberst', bold and bright, staring accusingly out at her. Madge can almost see the old woman glaring at the grass stains on Madge's skirt, where she'd been kneeling with Gale.

Carefully, Madge pulls a small hank of fudge from her bag. She breaks it in half and puts a piece on each of the two stones belonging to Mrs. Oberst's grandchildren. While the old woman hated Madge, wouldn't have wanted anything from her, her grandchildren had always liked Madge and her mother's fudge and Mrs. Oberst almost always took them some.

It's a bit stupid, she knows that, but somehow, she thinks it might earn her a begrudging celestial smile from her family's old housekeeper.

With a final smile, Madge walks a few paces down, finds her mother and father's stones.

It's a little funny, she thinks, as she stares at the stones baring her parents' names, that people had given her family such filthy looks in life for their wealth and security, two thing that only existed on a tenuous cliff, when in death they had no place of honor. Their stones were just as plain, just as lacking in ornamentation as everyone else's.

Her father's stone has a cigar on it, the kind he and Mr. Abernathy used to sit on the back porch and smoke all those years ago. Madge can't imagine the old Victor coming to the memorial, but she also can't imagine anyone else who might leave such a thing.

Beside her mother's name is a small bouquet. A few stems with clusters of yellow flowers at the tops, Madge vaguely remembers her Poppa calling them some kind of asphodel, a half dozen yellow tulips and some white honeysuckle are bundled together and carefully tied with a length of blue ribbon.

Focusing back on the names, she traces the etching with her eyes, memorizing each letter.

This is all that's left of them. Not even their bodies, which aren't so much as dust in the wind anymore, are there.

Madge reaches in her bag, pulls a few sprigs of rosemary out. She splits them apart, inhales the scent deeply before setting some down on each stone.

Gale eyes the little bundles oddly, frowns, but says nothing.

"Rosemary is for remembrance," Madge tells him. "My Poppa had a book, it told the meanings behind different flowers."

She didn't remember much of them, rosemary for remembrance, daisies for innocence, honeysuckle for devotion…

Different colors, combinations, they all had meanings, not that she could remember them all. She'd tried to find a copy of the book in the library, but it must've been an antique, a singular copy, because none were to be found.

The libraries had books that told of the different meanings, but none quite like her Poppa's which was now, like her parents, beyond dust.

Madge picks the older bundle by her mother's name up, adjusts the flowers a bit, then sets it down again.

"My mother loved tulips." She frowns, "I can't remember if they meant something though."

It was nice of Mr. Abernathy to remember her though, remember Madge's father, and she would bet he'd put the daisies on Maysilee's stone as well. He didn't have to. They were part of a painful past, a past he would probably never put behind him, and he didn't have to pour salt on his wounds by trudging out to this final resting place, putting mementos out for them.

Tears begin prickling Madge's eyes at that final thought.

This is the last stop for her little family. She's come to say her goodbye to them, the goodbye that had been snatched away the night of the bombings.

This is her closure, something she hadn't even realized how badly she needed.

Gale's arms are suddenly around her, pulling her to his chest, his rough hands rubbing gentle circles on her back and his murmurs vibrating comfortingly to her.

Hot tears begin soaking his shirt, he doesn't seem to care though, just keeps whispering softly to her, pressing his lips into her hair.

It takes her a second, but she feels her hair start to get damp.

She almost cries harder when she realizes she's upset him again.

"I'm sorry," she sputters into his shirt.

"Shhh."

They stay there, holding one another for what Madge imagines is only a few minutes, but feels like an eternity.

Her mind races, wonders whether her parent's would've approved of her life as it is now. Would they have liked her being with Gale? Or, if nothing had changed, if Twelve still existed, the Rebellion never happened, in some distant, impossible life, if Gale had given her a chance, would they have approved of them?

She wonders about Peeta's brothers.

In any of the possible worlds out there, Rebellion or not, would they have married? Had children? Would they have gotten closer with Peeta, helped him with the multitude of problems that now plagued him? If they'd survived that night? If Madge had been a little faster?

Would Mrs. Oberst's grandchildren have turned out like her? Bitter and hateful or stayed sweet and kind?

The memorial, the cemetery, is full of lives cut short, potentials turned to ash by a vengeful government, and Madge had very nearly been one more name on a cold stone.

She suddenly feels very small, very inconsequential. Her life was no more important than any of the people whose names stretch out around her, yet here she was.

"We'll all just be faded memories someday, Magdalene. That doesn't mean we aren't important."

That's what Birdy Alameda had told her during the Quarter Quell, before things had gone to pieces.

Madge feels her tears slow, lets one last wet cough escape as she calms herself.

She and Gale, her parents, his parents, everyone they knew, would be lost to the gears of history someday. They would be forgotten or distorted, martyred or erased, but that didn't matter.

Even if she was reduced to a name, she's been cut down to that before. When she was first in Ten, after the bombings, all she'd had was the name 'Madge Undersee', and she'd been okay. She'd survived that.

All she'd had was a name, all she amounted to was a faded memory, but that had been enough to bring Gale into her life. Being taken down to her bones hadn't made her any less of a person, and so she supposes that means she isn't any less important than she'd been when she'd been the Mayor's daughter.

Being reduced to names on stones didn't diminish any importance from the lives of the people the stones represented.

Pulling back, she wipes the last of the tears from her face, smears her cheeks with them.

Reaching up, she runs her thumbs under Gale's eyes, brushes away his tears as well.

That warm ache hits her chest, jolts through her, that longing for something that had been both wonderful and tragic. Her old life was gone, and she was always going to miss it, but the here and now, Gale and the life she had with him, was infinitely better. She feels a little guilty at that thought, but she supposes that's part of grieving, learning to accept that you'll be happy, maybe happier, after the storm has passed.

Gale catches her hand, takes her fingers and kisses the tips, "You okay?"

A water smile flicker on her lips as she nods.

She's at the crossroad between the Town and the Seam, the narrow point bridging the past and the present, and she has to learn to walk it, not be trapped in the pain like her mother, need something to numb her senses, nor try to ignore it, as she'd tried so hard to do before Gale found her.

"I think-I think I will be," she tells him.

And she thinks she will be. It's still going to take time, and the hurt will never go away, but it shouldn't. Grieving is a process, the dull ache, that beautiful hurt from loving and losing, is her faded memory of these people, and they're important enough to deserve that.

In all her learning and unlearning, she thinks this is probably going to be the longest lesson in her life, standing at the precipice of moving forward and falling back. Determining when she needs to let go and when she needs to hold on, it's part of growing up.

She's always been a good student though.

The pain will come and go, just like she told Gale, and that's okay.

Her life hadn't been perfect, but it had held bright spots, and she couldn't hurt if she didn't love it and all the people she'd left in it just a little. They were, are still, important.

Taking Gale's hand, she gives it a squeeze before pulling him back toward the path leading out.

She gives her parents' stones one last look, a final goodbye, she may never come back. Her peace has been made with her missing farewell, the need to see those lost memorialized, her lack of closure. All those needs have been met and she knows has to move forward, stop hating herself for surviving.

Knowing that there's something permanent for the lost residents of the District she'd grown up in has lessened the weight on her shoulders. She knows it isn't really important, that even without the cemetery, they were still important, but she, Gale, any number of other survivors, needed this.

There is no grand opening, not speeches, nothing elaborate, but that seems fitting.

Twelve's memorial is a place that lets you decide what to leave and what to take with you, and Madge has decided to leave her guilt over surviving and take all the happy memories of her family.

It's a simple thing, but that's what makes it so important.


	37. Little Pitchers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale knows the instant he walks into the kitchen he should turn and walk back out. Anytime his brothers are around and watching the children it's usually a sign of a bad evening for Gale.

Vick has Savanna on his lap. She's chewing her hand, drooling down the front of her blue dress while her uncle studiously reads through his medical book, probably readying himself for yet another test.

Rory is cracking open pecans with Glen. Gale watches for a second or two from the doorway as his son shows his brother how to use the nutcracker Gale had bought at the market a few months back.

They don't notice Gale lurking in the doorway, are all too absorbed in their activities, so he clears his throat.

"Dad! You're home." Glen holds up one of the pecans, "Look how many pecans Uncle Rory and me've cracked!"

Excitedly he waves to a small mountain of mutilated pecan meat on the counter to his left.

Gale smiles, ruffles his already wild hair, before sliding past him to scoop up his daughter.

"Come here, beautiful."

She squeals happily, murmurs 'Da! Da!' before smearing her spit covered hand down the front of Gale's shirt. He gives her a kiss on the last patch of skin on her cheek not covered in slobber before giving his brothers an annoyed look.

Much as he liked seeing them, he liked seeing his wife more.

"Why are you two here?"

Vick rolls his eyes, "Missed you too, big brother."

Gale thinks about swatting the back of his head, but Madge has told him that's teaching Glen a bad habit so he just glares at him instead.

"I meant, where's Madge?"

Rory tosses a chunk of pecan up and catches it in his mouth, "She went with mom and Posy. They wanted her advice for a dress or something, since she's a proper lady and all."

Fighting a groan, Posy is obnoxious about buying dresses for her dates, Gale takes the seat beside Glen, between he and Vick. Savanna shifts, dives for one of the pecans and he quickly flicks it away.

"Hey Glen," Rory grins. "You better give your dad that note from your teacher."

Oh shit.

There's something about Rory's smirk that tells Gale this isn't one of their irritating notes reminding the parents about conferences. Those were the week prior.

He can't imagine what kind of note it could be though. Glen is brilliant, has some of the best grades in his class, though Madge has pointed out pre-school isn't going to determine much of anything. He's a good kid, is friends with everyone, has never been in a fight, and from what Gale can tell, he's too laid-back to even get goaded into it like Gale would.

For a second Glen thinks, as though he has no idea what his Uncle is talking about, then a little color rises in his cheeks and he gives Gale a sheepish look.

Without saying anything, he flips around in his seat and yanks open his backpack, pulls out a note with swirly, cursive handwriting on it that Gale can barely make out.

Glen holds it out, "She wan'sa talk to you and momma."

Great. Judging by the look on Glen's face she isn't going to be thanking them for their obviously amazing procreation skills.

Staring at the note, Gale slowly deciphers the stupid teacher's words.

Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne,

I would like to meet with you as soon as possible regarding Glen. Today at recess he was caught behind the bushes with one of the girls, kissing her. Normally I would simply tell you to tell your son kissing at school is not allowed and warn him another offense would result in suspension, but the…dramatics, I can't think of another word for it, of his actions makes me think perhaps we should meet and discuss this matter a little further.

Regards, Devra Wranks

It takes almost two full readings before he absorbs what the note really says.

Glen was caught kissing a girl behind the bushes. Okay, there are worse thinks he could've been doing. Apparently his son had skipped the 'cooties' phase and got into the 'liking' phase with girls, which seemed to be a repeating occurrence with the men in his family. While he's starting a little earlier than the others, Gale still doesn't see how it's such a terrible thing.

"So, uh, did she not want you to kiss her?" Glen was normally pretty perceptive, but maybe he'd gotten caught up in the moment. Gale could see that needing further intervention. That would be dramatic, wouldn't it?

"Why would I kiss her if she didn't want me to?"

Okay…

Gale sees Rory and Vick exchange a look, an identical pair of smirks. Clearly, since they'd been the ones to pick Glen up, they knew the whole story.

"Well," Gale pushes down the feeling of impending doom in his stomach, "why did the teacher call it, uh, dramatic?"

Glen stares at him for a minute. He's thinking, Gale can see the wheels turning in his little head, the same as when Madge is planning out how to break something to Gale she thinks he'll find unpleasant.

Finally, he sighs.

"I kissed her like you kiss momma."

That…really doesn't explain much.

Rory catches on to the confusion.

"How does your dad kiss momma?" Rory asks, the smirk on his face letting Gale see he already knows how this conversation is going to end. He leans on the counter, elbows to the granite, face resting in the palms of his hands in anticipation.

Glen squints, not really understanding, then turns to Gale.

"Like you kiss momma." He frowns, plainly annoyed Gale doesn't know how he kisses his own wife.

A little hand comes up, swats at Gale's face and covers it in slobber while he thinks.

How does he kiss Madge that's…oh. Oh.

Glen starts to elaborate.

"I kiss-ed her on the lips, then on the cheek, then on her neck, and hugged her and put-ted my-my hands in her hair…" He stops thinking about his kiss and deciding if he's said everything. His eyes widen, apparently not.

"And I squeezed her on the butt." He frowns, "She thought that was funny."

It's now abundantly clear why Mrs. Wranks wants to talk to Gale and Madge. Their son is a pre-school harassment case waiting to happen.

Vick has put his face in his book, nose down in what looks suspiciously like breasts, almost wheezing with laughter. Rory is beaming, glowing with joy. He turns his mirthful gaze to Gale.

"He really is your son."

Not even caring if he's setting a bad example for Glen, clearly even his good examples lead to bad things, he reaches across the counter and slaps the back of Rory's head.

"I don't know why I'm in trouble." Glen huffs, not even noticing his uncles' stupid giggling around him. "Ariel said she liked me and I like her, and I said 'can I kiss you?' and she said 'uh-huh' and I said 'like my daddy kisses my momma' and she-she said 'how's that?' and I told her and she said 'okay' so I did." He looks thoroughly annoyed now, "I really like Ariel and I just kiss-ed her like you kiss someone you really like, how you kiss momma, and Mrs. Wranks got all mad and made me go sit in the office."

Gale has a vision of his future, Glen and his public displays of affection getting him in trouble with the fathers of plenty of girls. He can already imagine how upset this poor Ariel's parents must be, knowing some little brat had been groping their daughter.

He knows he'd be furious if it were Savanna.

Granted if she never gets this whole teething thing finished, gets the drooling under control, that may never be an issue.

"Glen," Gale ignores his brothers, both beside themselves in silent laughter now, "you can't kiss a girl like I kiss momma."

His son rolls his eyes, "Why not?"

Because you're in pre-school. "Because only married people kiss like that."

There that settles it.

"Really?" Rory, unhelpful as ever, raises his eyebrows, "I seem to remember you being quite handsy with Madge before you two were even dating."

Vick nods, "Yeah, and didn't you two sleep in the same bed for ages before you got together?"

They are being deliberately unhelpful and they know it.

They both smirk, shit-eating grins, as they watch and wait for Gale to try and explain away his pre-married life activities.

"That's not kissing," he says quickly, hoping Glen doesn't think about it too much. He's an unfortunately smart kid.

"So Glen could have this Ariel over for a sleepover and that would be okay?" Rory asks.

"And the butt squeeze is fine too then?" Vick ads, "'Cause that's not kissing."

Why did these assholes have to pick up his son on this of all days?

"No," he looks at Glen. "You can't touch a girl's, uh, anything."

He almost adds 'ever' but doesn't want to traumatize him.

"Until when?" Glen asks.

"Yeah, Gale," Rory comes around the counter, throws his arm around his nephews shoulder. "Until when?"

Glaring at Rory, he's a dead man, Gale tries to come up with an answer.

"Until…you're older." Smooth.

It would be divine justice to have his idiot brothers give Glen 'the talk' as Gale had been forced to do so many years ago, but he doesn't trust the bastards to not fill his son's head with all kinds of nonsense.

Well, Rory would. Vick is still much too enamored with Madge to teach her baby lies. He eggs Rory on, but he won't actively do it himself.

"How much older?"

Why is he suddenly so interested in kissing girls?

"Much." And that's all the elaboration he's getting.

Gale runs his hand through his hair, sticking it up in all directions he's sure, gives his son a pained look. "Why do you want to kiss this girl so much?"

A little smile creeps up on his son's face, his dark lashes flicker down to the ground, and his face darkens a little more.

"She's pretty," he sighs, looks up. "She's like momma. Pretty and nice and we share lunch, like you and momma share food, and she smells like peaches and…"

He's off, telling Gale all the things about Ariel that make her so wonderful.

It takes some work, but Gale manages to keep his grin at a respectable level, he doesn't want Glen to think he's laughing at him, but he's adorable with how completely taken with the girl he is.

His actions may be all inherited from Gale, but his understanding of why he wants to do them is definitely from his mother.

#######

When Madge gets home Vick and Rory make a hasty exit.

"Have a good night," Rory tells her ominously as he ducks out the back door to where his motorcycle is parked behind the garden.

Vick gives her a kiss on the cheek as he heads out the door. "See you this weekend."

Madge looks a little confused. Normally Vick hangs out for a while and tells her about his clinicals, something Gale wants to know nothing about. Neither, he thinks, does Madge, but she's spent too long letting him dish out the painful details and now she's stuck.

Gale gets the impression both his brothers are looking forward to the weekly dinner at their mother's house more than usual just so they can hear the lurid conclusion to the Tale of Glen's Love Life.

Nose wrinkling up at the door as it drops closed behind Vick, Madge turns to Gale, "What am I missing?"

You really don't want to know.

Propping the baby a little more securely on his hip, Gale sighs, "Sit down."

#######

Gale gives her the short version of events, shows her the note, then Glen, when he finally emerges from his bath, gives her his much more entertaining version.

"…and daddy said I have to be married to kiss her like that, but Uncle Rory said daddy kissed you before you were married and had sleepovers and touched your butt-"

Madge is blazing crimson when she covers her eyes, holds up a hand to stop him from speaking.

"Glen, sweety, daddy and I were much, much older when we started…doing those things." She gives him a little smile, pulls him into her lap, "Take it slow. There'll be plenty of time to kiss when you're older."

Though he doesn't look totally convinced, Glen's shoulders droop a little and he nods.

"I can't kiss her at all?"

Madge plucks up the note, gives it a look over, "What does the note say?"

For a second Glen is quiet, then he grins, "It says no kissing at school."

My wife is creating a monster.

Madge nods, "Not at school."

Glen grins, looks at the note again, then pops up and kisses Madge on the cheek.

He bounces off her lap, over to Gale and Savanna, tells them both goodnight, before racing down the hall to bed.

"What have you done?"

Madge rolls her eyes, "Oh, Gale, it's pre-school. He spends five minutes outside after class with the girl before we pick him up. How much trouble can he get into?"

Considering he's Gale's child, clearly got the Hawthorne charm, the answer is probably 'plenty'.

Thinking about this poor 'Ariel' girl, Gale feels a little queasy, pulls Savanna a little closer. In a few short years she'll be in school, be just as cute as Glen, and Gale will be on the other side of this child-sized tale of kissing and groping. It'll be his little girl that just learned what Gale greatly fears is tongue kissing from some smarmy boy.

Seeing the look on his face, Madge snorts, "What?"

"She's never going to school." Clearly it's not a safe place to be.

With a long sigh Madge scoots down the couch, presses herself into his side, "You think she won't be able to defend herself?"

That's stupid, she's his and Madge's daughter, of course she'll be able to defend herself. Considering it a little more, Gale sees what the real problem will be.

"If she's anything like her mother she'll be a devious little thing. I need to protect the boys from her."

Madge gives him a narrow little look, a small smile creeping up her lips, "Oh, I'm devious?"

Did she not just hear herself giving their son advice on how to circumvent the school rules? She's the most devious person Gale's ever known.

He nods, "Always manipulating me."

"Am I?" She presses a kiss under his ear, her breath ghosting along his jaw.

"Absolutely."

Gale feels her shift, presses a little closer to his side. He's ready to grab her, put the baby to bed, head to their room and lock the door, god forbid they give Glen anymore ideas.

Then she sits back, stealing her warm breath and soft body from his side.

"I'm going to go tuck Glen in."

Gale scowls at her back as she gets up and head for the hall.

"See? Devious."

Turning back, she grins, "Well let's hope they do get my abilities to influence, rather than your ability to be influenced, don't you think?"

He does. He really does.

Standing, Gale follows after her, catches her around the waist and pulls her back, causing her to squeak.

"Since I'm so easily influenced, why don't we put these rugrats to bed and then you can manipulate me a little more?"

She kind of owes him, he thinks. Clearly she uses her powers of persuasion against him, which is why their kid knows way too much about kissing.

Madge gives him a hard look, "Maybe Glen should give you some lessons on being a little more smooth."

"He learned his moves somewhere," Gale presses a few kisses to her neck.

"Yeah, and now we have to go meet with his teacher." She smirks at his disgusted look. "So, if he inherited just a little bit more of my deviousness and learned fewer of your moves we wouldn't be in this mess."

While that might be true, he isn't about to admit it.

Slowly, they make their way down the hall, to the baby's room. She's already asleep, Rory has the amazing power to exhaust her, one of the few abilities his brother has that Gale is actually a little envious of. As soon as she's in the crib Gale hoists Madge up, almost running out of the room.

"We still have to tuck Glen in," she laughs into his shoulder.

He groans.

Madge plops down, takes his hand, "Don't worry, I'll still manipulate you later."

Happy at that thought, he follows her down to their son's room.

Despite the bad omen of his brothers watching the kids, Gale's evening is looking to end on a high note after all.


	38. Kisses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale wraps his arms around Madge's middle, pulls her flush against his chest before he presses a kiss to her neck, just under her left ear.

A pale blush creeps up her cheeks and she tilts her head, gives him a sheepish grin.

"You don't have to be kissing me all the time," she tells him teasingly.

He knows that, but he certainly wants to. The fact that he can kiss her, is allowed to, is reason enough to do it as much, and as often, as possible.

If he could spend the rest of his life memorizing her lips, her skin, her soft hair, he would, without hesitation.

The kiss at the hovercraft port hadn't gone exactly as he'd hoped, she'd run off on him, made him believe that he'd made yet another mistake with a girl he cared deeply for. Madge had come back, though, windswept and flushed, told him she was sorry and scared and million other things he just barely remembers. The only thing that had mattered at the time was that she'd come back. Despite all her insecurities, which she'd thrown at his feet in what he felt was spectacular fashion, she came back.

He'd still been afraid of kissing her though. That had spooked her the first time and if waiting was what she needed then waiting is what he was prepared to do.

She'd sprung the next kiss on him, during a walk, and he's never been more grateful for something in his life.

They've settled into an easy routine of kissing and touching, hugging and holding, things Gale had been missing for ages now.

He had removed himself from the dating pool before Madge had even come back into his life. He was a mess and needed to get his life in order before dragging another human being into it.

That had gone well enough, until he'd found Madge.

She wasn't someone he'd have to explain himself to. Madge knew he had a bitter side, a vicious side. She'd witnessed that part of him; bore his unpleasantness on her shoulders during much of the Seventy-fourth Games. The fact that Gale was capable of great cruelty was not news to her, which was a relief. There were no false expectations with her.

He'd devised terrible things, and he would be haunted by them for the rest of his life.

Madge understood the kind of mistakes he'd made though.

"You were trying to help the Rebellion, Gale," she told him, more than once. "Even when you have the best of intentions things can get twisted."

She would know, he supposed, her father worked from within the corrupt and dangerous government, trying to help the downtrodden people of his District, without so much as a 'thank you' for his troubles. Madge's father had done so much, more than Gale thinks he even knows about, to help the people of Twelve, but even with his good intentions people had suffered.

Madge understands sacrifice, trying and failing, more than most, and Gale knows that's why she can still stand to look at him. She knows he's human, not flawless, not the great war hero the government paints him as.

As much as he'd enjoyed her companionship, though, he enjoys her kisses more.

"I want to kiss you all the time," he murmurs into her hair, inhales the raspberry scent. "I wasted a lot of time not kissing you and I need to make up for it."

She snorts and he feels the air rush over the backs of his hands.

Gale presses a line of kisses down her neck, one hand gently brushing soft tangles of her hair out of the way until he reaches her collar bone.

"Gale, your mother might walk in," she tells him. There isn't much conviction behind her breathy voice though.

His mother won't be surprised. This would hardly be the first time she'd walked in on him kissing, but it would be the first time she'd catch him with a girl she actually approves of.

Gale doesn't mention that though. Reminding Madge of one more thing from his past that is less than sterling isn't something he feels like doing. She's perfectly aware he's kissed plenty of girls, not nearly as many as the rumors had claimed, but still more than enough.

All those kisses had been messy, heated things. Lips and bodies and hands without thought up at the slag heap, a place Gale's mind can't even imagine Madge in.

Kisses with Madge aren't urgent, not forced and desperate, a flash in the pan before the next event. Her kisses are soft, easy, and eager, but not frantic. They leave Gale with a sense of peace. Each one lights an aching need in his chest for more.

But it's a delicious kind of need.

It's a hungry feeling he's never known before, one that only seems to grow the more he holds her, the more he kisses her. It had crept up on him when he realized he loved her and now it has a firm grip on his heart.

A thought strikes him and he chuckles against her neck.

"What?" Her eyes widen and her head turns sharply. "Did I do something?"

Gale catches her lips with his, parts them gently. He smiles into the kiss.

"I just realized something," he finally says.

Madge's nose wrinkles up in confusion. "What?"

He tightens his arms around her middle, pulls her a little closer to his body.

"You're my first girlfriend." He should've realized it when he introduced her to his commanding officer the day before. The thought had slipped his mind, though, because he'd been so preoccupied with happiness at being able to say, 'This is my girlfriend, Madge'.

She cuts her eyes over, wrinkles her nose a little more. "You're joking."

"Cross my heart," he tells her as he maneuvers her to face him.

"But…" she frowns at the ground. Her eyes glance up, through her lashes. "Really?"

He nods.

He's been on plenty of dates, just like he's kissed plenty of girls, but as far as pinning a title to the relationships, he's never called any of them his girlfriend.

Back in Twelve he'd been too busy. First school and hunting, then work and hunting, and of course there'd been Katniss.

After Twelve, after the war, there'd been too much anger, too much pain to build a relationship. Most of the women he'd been around had been every bit as broken and volatile as he'd been. They were one night stands and repeat encounters, but not relationships.

They weren't even close to being in the same place as where he and Madge were right now.

"Well," Madge bites her lip, "you're my first boyfriend."

Gale grins at her, leans down and put his forehead to hers, "I want to be your only boyfriend."

Madge gives him a lazy grin, shrugs. "Well, we'll see."

He guides her back, wedges her between his body and the wall. She's teasing him. "We'll see?"

She glances away, tries to force the smile off her face. "You have a kissing debt to pay. If you don't get that under control then I just don't know how far this relationship can go."

When he dips down, begins peppering her face and neck, down to her chest and back up again with kisses, she makes a small noise, begins laughing.

"Gale!" She wriggles pleasantly against him. "Your mother could walk in!"

Gale catches her lips again, silencing her.

When they break apart she's breathless, the blush has traveled down to her chest.

He leans in, nips at her ear. "You know how I am with debt, Madge. I'm just making a payment."

His lips begin trailing down her neck again, slower this time, enjoying the taste of her skin.

For as long as she'll let him, Gale will spend the rest of his life kissing her, making up for the lost time he'd created when he'd been too foolish to know how wonderful she was.

Madge lets out a long, contented sigh, smiles softly at him. "What do you plan on doing when you've paid down your kisses?"

Gale quickly silences her again, a little longer this time, memorizing the taste of mint on her tongue.

He doesn't say it, but he's certain she understands.

The deficit he's accumulated for kissing her will never be repaid, and for the first, and probably only time in his life, Gale is okay with being in someone's debt.

Especially if it means kissing her all the time.


	39. Mothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
> 
> A/N: Happy Mother's Day! Especially to my mother, even though she'll never read this and has no idea what I do on my computer. She's still the best.

Gale catches a lightening bug between his hands. He opens his little fists just enough to peek in at it, sees it glowing in the dark confines of his hands before running back to his mother sitting on the rickety front porch.

"Look," he holds it out to her, opening his fingers enough for her to see it resting in his palms. It's enormous.

Rory immediately tries to eat it and it flies away.

"Bad Rory," Gale scolds him.

His mother sigh, "Gale, he's only a baby. He doesn't know any better."

Rory certainly knows he likes the floating, glowing light. He laughs and claps as it escapes its captors, up into the sky above their head.

He's been teething, taking up more of his and Gale's mother's time. Gale just wants a moment with her, like they'd had before the baby came along.

Flopping down in frustration at his lost bug, and his increasingly small time with his mother, Gale leans into her. "When dad comes home can he hold Rory so you can help me catch bugs for my jar?"

She shifts Rory, who has started chewing his fist, and gives Gale a kiss in his hair. "Don't you want dad to help you?"

Normally he would, but catching lightening bugs has always been something he and his mother did. This was his first jar of the year. The glowing bugs had only just reemerged, so he at least wants to capture them with her this time. His dad can do it next time.

"No," Gale juts his lower lip out. "I want you."

She chuckles, "Well with a face like that, how can I say no?"

Gale almost sticks his tongue out at Rory, but his luck the brat would probably reach out and grab it.

Settling in by his mother, Gale picks up his jar and waits, a little less than patiently, squirming every few minutes. He squints into the distance and listens for the booming laughter that accompanies the returning miners.

When his dad gets home, Gale will have his mother all to himself. At least for a few minutes. Maybe they'll be able to catch the giant lightening bug again.

Rory might have gotten the lion's share of the day with their mother, but Gale thinks there's still hope for a good end to the day.

As long as his dad holds the baby and doesn't feed him the bugs.

#######

Madge sits on her porch, wiggles her legs out in front of her as she and her mother watch the lightening bugs burn in and out of existence in the yard.

"They're like lanterns, aren't they, love?" Her mother smiles out at the dancing lights in the dark.

She's had a good day, been out of bed and downstairs with Madge since before noon. No headaches, no fits of tears, she'd even managed to take Madge to Poppa's candy shop without getting lost.

It's been a good day.

Madge nods, smiles up at her mother. She wishes everyday could go this well for them. Tomorrow, though, Madge knows isn't guaranteed to be this uneventful, so she leans into her mother's side and tries to enjoy this rare moment without worrying about the bad day that the next sunrise will surely bring.

"I can catch you one," her mother tells her suddenly.

"No, momma, I don' wanna hur' them." Madge quickly shakes her head, feels her ponytail slowly dissolve with the force.

Her mother just smiles, stands and takes a few delicate steps into the soft grass. She reaches out and cups her hands, one of the small flickering lights floats right in and she closes her hands around it, brings it down to her face to inspect.

Curious and worried, Madge runs out to her, begins chewing her lip when her mother lowers her cupped hands down and opens them.

The lightening bug is the biggest Madge has ever seen. It stays resting in her mother's palms for a few seconds before realizing it's being freed. It flies off, up past Madge's smiling face, into the increasingly dark night sky.

Her mother laughs, tells Madge to wave goodbye to it.

"He'll visit us again," she sighs.

Madge doubts that. Small things have very short lives, her father had taught her that. Her mother's bug will be dead before it can ever visit them again.

Instead of telling her mother about the life cycles of bugs, their short lives and nonexistent manners as far as visits go; Madge just wraps her arms around her mother's legs and gives them a tight squeeze.

She may not get another good day, but she's still going to enjoy this one.

#######

Gale collapses next to Madge and watches as Glen puts another lightening bug in his jar. It's been a good day, but a long one and Madge hears him groan next to her, pops his neck.

She wishes she could go out and play with Glen like she had. As soon as the baby is born, Madge thinks, she'll be back out in the yard with her son.

Madge rubs her belly and grimaces. "I think she wants to get out to play with her brother. She keeps kicking me in the ribs."

"Maybe she wants to eat them," Gale offers. "That's what Rory use to do."

Her face pulls back in a grimace, then she starts laughing. "That explains a lot about him."

Clearly her husband had let his brother ingest too much of whatever makes the bugs glow and it had poisoned his brain.

Before they can discuss ways to keep their second child from following in Uncle Rory's bug eating footsteps, Glen bounces over, roughly shaking his glowing jar at them.

"Look!"

Madge bites her lip and hopes they haven't all been jiggled to death. "Glen, honey, don't shake them. You'll hurt them."

His face falls and he holds the jar up and squints in. "I'm sorry bugs."

Taking the jar from him, Gale smiles. Each and every bug is still flickering on and off apparently.

"I think they survived, but be careful with them," he tells Glen as he hands the glowing jar back.

Glen settles in between them, starts counting the softly glowing lights in his jar and telling Madge's stomach about what each of his new 'pets' is doing.

She combs her fingers through his dark hair, he's got a little grass stuck in it, and smiles as she listens to his colorful tales of what each of his bugs is named and what each of them wants to tell the new baby.

Slowly, his chatter fades, is replaced by the soft noises of sleep.

Madge watches as Gale carefully picks him up. Then she lifts her arms, wiggles her fingers at him. "Help."

He grins. "Completely helpless without me, aren't you?"

She shoots him her sternest glare. "Just wait until I'm not pregnant anymore."

Gale chuckles, pulls her to her slightly swollen feet, and gives her a quick peck on the cheek. "I'm terrified."

He had better be.

As soon as the baby is born she'll catch lightening bugs with her son and then get her teasing husband back.

And that will be a very good day.


	40. Sirens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
> 
> AN: Many thanks to FortuneFaded2012 for correcting my sleep deprived grammar by beta'ing this for me.

Gale finishes snapping the ends from the beans. He tosses the last one into the colander, before he stands and stretches. Madge, who had been cleaning a mess of them in the sink, has abandoned her post and gone down the stairs to the street front with Katy-Jo Lewes.

It had been hot, sweltering and sweaty, for the past day and a sudden cool wind had swept in, which if Katy-Jo Lewes was to be believed, was an ominous sign.

"Storms will be coming soon," she told him.

He didn't know about Ten's weather as well as her, so he'd just shrugged and gone with Madge to the market.

They'd had a small disagreement when they'd gotten to the tomatoes.

"Don't you have to get back to Two for your appointment?" Madge had asked as she'd dug through the red fruits.

"No," Gale answered evasively. She didn't need to be memorizing his schedule.

She'd stopped, looked back at him with her nose wrinkled. "No? Did they change your time?"

They hadn't. Gale had been going to the same therapist, to work through the traumas of the war and even before, for several years. They'd decreased his visits to once a month during the last year, but Gale felt that was too often. He'd made giant leaps with his so called 'issues', the therapist had even said so. Gale wasn't about to cut his visit to Madge short just to make a meeting he didn't need.

"I'll just go next month." He'd told her as he handed her a large tomato.

She hadn't liked that answer. "You can't just skip those appointments, Gale. They're important for your health."

He hadn't responded to that, just refused to talk to her other than to grunt his approval of her vegetable choices. She'd given him several dark looks, but those had dissipated when the weather had started to change.

Now both girls were out, standing on the wooden walkway, staring at the sky.

Gale jogs down the back steps, weaves through the store to the front door, which they've propped open. He leans against the door frame, notes a loose nail down by the threshold, and squints out at the pair.

"Look at that sky," Katy-Jo Lewes shields her eyes, wrinkles her nose as she peers up at the hazy sky. It's dusky, a kind of faded green almost, and she doesn't seem to like it. She shakes her head. "They'll be telling us to get down soon."

Madge seems to understand, nods slowly. She's been in Ten for several years and isn't as confused by their cryptic messages as Gale.

He's just opened his mouth to ask her what she's talking about, something silly he's sure, when he hears it.

It's a high wail, almost muffled by the distance, but Gale recognizes it.

A siren.

He hasn't heard one in years, not since he'd left Twelve, but it isn't a sound he will ever forget. It's the sound that flooded the air when his father was killed. It's danger and death, and it drowns everything else out.

The world seems to slow. People begin running down the street. Katy-Jo Lewes gestures for Madge to come and grabs for her hand, but Madge dodges it and grabs Gale.

Her mouth is moving, she's saying something pulling on him, but he's rooted in the spot. When he doesn't budge she begins frantically tugging on him, squeezing his hand harder.

How she got him to move he doesn't remember, all he knows is that they're several blocks down the road and her face is tear streaked. She continues to pull him down the increasingly windy road, toward what he isn't sure, yelling back at him to 'Keep moving, Gale!'

Their destination becomes clear when they take a final corner.

Several men are holding up a large metal door, urging people down into the pit below.

Gale's mind immediately tells him to turn. There's a siren blaring and these idiots are going underground.

He starts to turn, run as far from the deathtrap as he can, but Madge catches him. Shebegins tugging him toward the hole, but much less forcefully than before. She's talking, screaming and crying, but all Gale can hear is the siren.

Her terror must get him to move, because the next thing he knows is dim yellow light and the coolness of a crypt. Madge is windswept and red-eyed when she finally pushes Gale to the ground. She swats at her eyes, keeps talking to him, but he can still only hear the siren.

Gale doesn't respond when she asks a question and Madge stumbles around to his side, drops to her knees and takes his face in her cool hands. Shemakes him look at her.

She's saying his name, he can read is on her lips, but everything else is drowned in the dull hum of the swell of bodies around them and the incessant screaming of the siren.

His heart, which had been pounding painfully in his chest, begins to slow as Madge's thumbs rub over his hot cheeks. She's covered in dark shadows from the poor lighting, but he can still see she's a mess. Her hair is in tangles, bits of debris, dirt and grass, are woven in it. Her cheeks are flush and her eyes are bright, shining in what little light they can absorb. He still can't hear her though.

Gale doesn't know how long they sit down there, several hours he's sure, but at some point, with Madge's tiny patch of warmth curled up into his side, he nods off.

#######

He wakes when someone slaps the side of his head.

Bleary eyed and with a throbbing headache, Gale blinks his eyes open, squints up at whoever has so rudely interrupted his nap.

Katy-Jo Lewes, darker than usual in the poor lighting of the underground room, is looking down at him. Her mouth is turned down and her eyebrows are pulled together disapprovingly.

"We let you sleep 'til we got everyone else out. Now you gotta get a move on, boy."

The twang of her voice is grating on his already frayed nerves and he's tempted to close his eyes and go back to sleep. He jerks awake, though, when his body notices the conspicuous lack of warmth beside it.

His head whips around, searching for any signs of Madge, but he only finds a cold, empty spot beside him.

"She went to the medical tent," Katy-Jo Lewes answers his question before he can even form it.

Gale stares at her, his foggy brain slowly registering what she's said.

Finally, the wheels turn, sluggishly, but he grasps her words.

"Medical tent?"

She nods, slowly, like she's explaining something to a very dull child. "Yeah. Medical tent, sugar. For her leg."

What she's saying still isn't making much sense. Gale blinks again, trying to focus on her and what's around him. She must see that he's still confused, because she sighs and begins tapping her foot as she waits for him to catch up with her.

Gale runs his hands over his face to try to rub the haze out of his eyes and mind. It takes a minute, but the last few hours start to piece together in his head.

It's a mess, fragmented and dull, but he gets the general idea.

Sirens and running and cold panic.

Struggling to his feet, he stumbles and nearly tumbles over Katy-Jo Lewes. She catches him and rights him, shoots him another disapproving glare.

"Will you calm down?"

He shakes his head and the room swims a little. Katy-Jo Lewes grabs his arm, keeps him upright.

"I need to get to Madge," Gale tells her as he pushes her away. His mouth is almost too dry to form the words.

The room is too dark. Someone had turned off most of the naked bulbs that had earlier illuminated it. Gale can't see the floor and nearly trips over several discarded shoes and a clump of blankets

For a minute it seems like she might just let him stumble around in the dark room. Her arms are crossed and her expression is tight. Finally, though, she sighs.

She stomps over, wraps her fingers with sharp little nails around his upper arm and pulls him with her.

"You're going the wrong way."

With her nails cutting into his skin, she tugs him through the dim room until he sees the faint glow of fading daylight breaking through the ceiling, making the room around him that much darker.

He almost starts to run for it, but his feet still can't quite move fast enough and he almost trips again.

Katy-Jo Lewes leads him up a ramp, he faintly remembers Madge pulling him down it earlier, and into the early hours of evening. She lets him go when they reach the night above.

The air is cooler, cleaner than it had been before. Looking around, Gale finds the ground littered with debris, leaves and branches and shingles from the buildings and houses. Several fences along the backsides of the shops on the main road are down, flattened and in some cases in pieces.

"Just a little one," Katy-Jo Lewes tells him when she notices his wide eyes.

He arches his eyebrows, "A little what?"

"Tornado," she answers simply. Her mouth forms a line, "Or maybe it was just straight line winds. Don't really know. They use to have people that studied the weather, but that was before the Dark Days. You should talk to that President of ours; see if we can get us some weather watchers again."

Gale nods numbly, only half registering what she's saying. His mind comes to a sudden, painful stop.

Medical tent.

He rounds on Katy-Jo Lewes. "Why is Madge in the medical tent?"

She rolls her eyes. "I told you, for her leg."

Something has happened to Madge, and it's Gale's fault. Katy-Jo Lewes' sharp attitude and narrowed looks tell him that.

Not waiting for elaboration, Gale takes off, leaving Katy-Jo Lewes yelling at his back. His feet and mind are working again and they both urge him forward. The medical tent will have to be in an open area, most likely the patch of land to the west.

He's just turned the corner, slipping in the loose gravel on the road, when he spots a large white canvas stretched from the lowest point of a battered looking old building out to several heavy looking poles. There are no sides, Gale can see people, all dressed in florescent yellow jackets, tending to wounded at little tables and beds set up under the canvas shade.

His feet start up again, quickly carrying him to the outer edge of the tent where he starts scanning each table and chair for Madge.

There are too many people, too much florescent moving in front of his eyes.

There's too much medical chatter echoing around him. It's too much like Thirteen when he and the other District Twelve refugees had arrived. Poking and prodding and testing.

Panic starts building up again, but he takes a breath and fights it. He has to find Madge.

An old woman, translucent skin and shockingly white hair, comes up behind him and taps him on the shoulder with her boney finger. When he turns and glares her ancient face wrinkles up in a smile. "Do you need attention, dear?"

She's holding a clipboard; he can see names and numbers on it. Another horrible flash of Thirteen shoots through Gale's mind, but he manages to nod, mumble out a name. "Uh, Madge Undersee."

Her smile widens, making her wrinkles more severe, and she holds the board up to within an inch of her face.

"Undersee?" She seems puzzled for a minute before making a happy noise. "Oh, here she is. Magdalene Undersee. Table twelve. She'll be in the main building."

She waddles in the spot, turns to the building and raises her weathered hand.

"Go through those doors, second hall to the right and straight on 'til you reach the end. Big twelve on the door. Can't miss it."

Gale barely grunts a 'thank you' before taking off again.

He barrels past a line of people getting shots from a harried looking woman, down the hall the old woman had directed him to, and to the door. Taking a breath, he pushes it open.

Madge blinks at him, clearly she hadn't expected visitors. She's sitting on a wooden table; it reminds Gale a bit of the worn table Rooba used to butcher on. Madge's skirt is hiked up on the left, exposing a deep gash running from just above her knee up to the upper edge of her panties.

Quickly she pushes her skirt down and gives him a scandalized look. "Gale!"

Before she can berate him for not knocking or something equally as minor, he rushes in and slams the door behind him. She makes to get up, but he catches her. He pushes her firmly back on the table and wraps his arms around her, burying his face in her hair.

She makes a little noise, a sort of muffled squeak, but doesn't pull away. Her hands, as cool as ever, give him a little pat on the back and she murmurs softly into his shoulder, though he has no idea what she could possibly be saying.

When he's finally satisfied she's real, not a figment of his desperate mind, he pulls back.

His hand immediately falls to her leg.

It's bloody and starting to bruise, but not as deep as he'd originally thought. There's a bottle of something, the salty compound he remembers being used to clean his burns in Thirteen, sitting open on the tiny rolling table beside Madge's seat, a wad of bloody gauze is tossed haphazardly beside it.

"It's not too bad," she tells him as he runs his fingers over her leg, avoiding the torn flesh. "They say it'll just take a few stitches."

Gale remembers Mrs. Everdeen stitching people up, getting out her needle and thread and pulling their ripped skin together. He remembers bottles of whatever drink was available and gnashing teeth as she mended skin. Madge is going to have to go through that, and it's his fault.

A sharp pain hits his chest again. If he'd just run, instead of being frozen in place and slowing her down, Madge might not be sitting in the cramped room in a back hall of some filthy medical building.

It could've been worse, though.

What if she wasn't able to get him to move? What if they hadn't gotten to that horrible shelter before the storm hit?

Madge could've died and Gale would be responsible.

The room echoes with a garbled noise. In the back of his head, Gale remembers the gurgling of dying animals and he turns his head to see what wounded creature has stumbled in.

His face is caught though, taken by the chin and turned back by Madge's delicate hands. She has one of the clean gauze out and runs it over his cheeks, smearing moisture across his face.

At first he thinks she's cleaning dust off of him and he starts to tell her not to bother. It isn't until she starts shushing him that he realizes he's crying.

He almost doesn't remember when he cried last. During the Games he supposes, frustrated, angry tears for and about Katniss.

The tears coming now, that won't seem to stop, are different. They aren't desperate sadness, like when his father died, or even relief, like when he'd caught his first rabbit in the shadow of many long, hungry weeks after the mine accident.

There's no pinpoint in his mind for why he's suddenly started sobbing, and that makes him cry harder.

"It's okay," she whispers. A little smile forms on her lips. "You're okay."

She pulls him into a hug, rests her hands on his back and rubs gentle circles on his shoulders.

He can feel the fabric of her dusty shirt getting increasingly wetter where his eyes continuously blink out forceful tears. As much as it irritates him, he can't stop.

For several minutes he just holds her, cries on her shoulder and soaks in the warmth of her body.

Madge isn't fragile, but she's human. She could be snatched from him so quickly and so senselessly, and that causes an ache to run through him down to his core. He's hurt too many people, lost too much, some by his own doing, and he can't add Madge to that list.

"I'm sorry," he tells her thickly. It barely comes out, sounds wet and sloppy to his ears when it does, but she understands.

#######

Gale holds her hand as the doctor, a pinched looking man that starts their introduction by telling them he's a veterinarian, stitches her up.

He doesn't watch, he can't. All he can do is study Madge's expressions as she scrunches her face with each poke of the needle. When it's over he offers to carry her home, her leg needs rest after all.

"Haha," she snorts, pokes him with the walking stick the veterinarian had given her. "I think I'll make it."

They pass Katy-Jo Lewes, who'd apparently come and immediately gotten in line for a shot from a tall, dark, and obnoxiously smiling man. Gale doubts she needs it, those shots are for the people down in the nails and metal, Madge's insane friend just wants to flirt. It's her favorite pastime.

When they reach the gravel road Gale scoops Madge up, despite her protests. He's the reason she's hurt and he won't let her injure herself more just because she's armed with a large stick.

She stops struggling after it becomes painfully apparent Gale is stronger than her. Her arms, nicked and scabbed, catch Gale's attention as she wraps them around his neck and his heart stings a little more.

"Will you promise me something?" She finally asks as her apartment comes into view.

Seeing her cut and bruised, filthy with dirt and debris, there's very little Gale would deny her at the moment. He nods.

"Go to your therapy appointment."

Should've seen that coming.

Madge bites her lip, peers up at him through her eyelashes. "Please. I know you're doing better, probably more than I even know, but-"

"I know." He isn't great. There are still things he needs to work through and avoiding his stupid therapist won't make those things go away.

As he's about to tell her he'll leave in a couple of days, just enough time to make it to Two and to his therapy session, he feels something warm and moist press to his cheek.

Madge's face, every inch of her pale skin and pink tinged cheeks, pulls back after Gale nearly knocks his nose into hers. His face tingles where she'd put her soft lips to his stubble covered jaw.

"I'm proud of you, Gale."

He scowls at that. She shouldn't be. It had taken getting her hurt for him to realize how far he still has to go. Still, her praise makes the stinging in his chest lessen fractionally.

Her face is so close, and for a second he wonders what her lips taste like. Something in his stomach flops over and he nearly jostles her, nearly leans in and closes the gap between them and gives in to his curiosity.

Madge's eyes are dark, just barely lit in the pale starlight, and Gale thinks she might let him.

A strong, cool wind blows up though, rustles her skirt, and the moment is broken.

She shivers in his arms and he quickens his pace.

"Think there's still time to cook those beans?" He asks, hoping to avoid an awkward lull in the walk.

Her nose wrinkles. "I think the power is out."

Gale chuckles. "Who needs electricity? I know how to build a fire. You get that bacon ready and we'll have dinner done in no time."

She shoots him a slight look. "I don't like touching the bacon." Her nose scrunches up. "It makes my hands all…ick."

"You are such a Town girl."

Her eyes roll and she mutters, "Whatever."

Gale laughs again.

It'll be hard, leaving early for his appointment. Leaving Madge and her squeamish tendencies and her soft lips, but if that's what it'll take to get better, keep from getting her hurt again, Gale's willing to do it.


	41. Ghost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale rolls over, blinks into the empty darkness of his family's quarters.

He hates Thirteen. He hates being underground almost constantly, the recycled air and artificial light. Gale hates that the clothes are all the same bland shade of gray as the wall. He hates the never ending schedules they have everyone on.

In fact, other than the fact that for the first time in his life his family has a consistent diet of three meals a day, there's nothing about the long lost District that he's impressed with.

His eyes scan the room, expecting to see Rory and Vick sleeping on their mattresses on the opposite wall.

They aren't there though, both mattresses are empty, blankets tossed around, but void of the occupants.

Annoyed with them, he's warned them about wandering the strange halls during their 'nocturnal quiet time', or whatever the schedulers in Thirteen have labeled sleep, Gale rolls out of bed. He rubs his palms to his eyes and pops his neck before stumbling out of the tiny room and into the living area.

The light in the kitchen is on, pale yellow spills out of the entryway and into the living room. Both boys are talking, speaking in low voices to one another as they shuffle papers.

Quietly, Gale pads across the short distance and peaks in at them.

They're at the small wooden table, sifting through a stack of papers, examining each page carefully. Gale suddenly feels a little left out. Why hadn't they woke him? He doesn't get as much time with them as he would like anymore, and he would happily join them in whatever late night or early morning project they have cooking up.

"What about 'Meg Horn'?" Vick asks.

Rory shakes his head, "No, met her."

Vick sighs, tosses his paper in the stack of what appears to be already examined pages, then picks up another. Rory's gray eyes flicker along the lines of his paper for a minute longer before he does the same.

After watching them for a few minutes, Gale finally steps out of the darkened living room and into the dully lit kitchen.

Both Rory and Vick's eyes jump up. They each grab their stack of papers and pull them towards them, as if expecting Gale to take them away and eye him warily.

"Morning, Gale!" Vick gives him a falsely cheery smile. "You're awake early."

Out of all of them, Vick is the sibling Gale knows wouldn't make it through an interrogation; he's as transparent as glass. Gale squints at him, yawns, then collapses into the little chair across from both of them.

"What're the two of you doing?" He asks as he rubs his hand over his face.

"Reading," Rory tells him simply. "Go back to bed. You have stuff to do in the morning."

Glaring at him, Gale tries to stare into his brother's head and figure out why he's so eager to rid himself of Gale all of a sudden. Normally, Rory is eager to spend time with him, eager to prove that he's a man. They haven't spent as much time together since coming to Thirteen, Gale knows that. Rory hasn't bugged him to tag along or asked annoying and personal questions since they'd left Twelve. Now that he thinks about it, Gale feels a knot settling in his stomach.

Vick's wide eyes flicker between the two before settling on Gale. "Yeah, you have a lot to do in the morning."

Now Gale knows something is up. Vick is the talker. If they'd been back in Twelve and woken like this, Vick would be all too excited to bombard Gale with the agonizing details of whatever he and Rory are doing. Instead of bubbling over with words though, he simply looks tense.

Yawning again, Gale shakes his head, "No. I'm not too busy to help you guys. What're you doing?"

Vick starts chewing his lip guiltily, but Rory simply shakes his head.

"We don't need help."

Growing more concerned about their evasiveness, Gale reaches out and tries to snatch the papers from Rory, who is closer, but his brother yanks them out of his reach and shoots him a dark look.

"I said we don't need help," he tells Gale coolly.

Before Vick can realize what's happening, Gale juts his hand over and grabs the papers from him. He makes a startle sound, keeps grasping the papers tightly, but with one good tug Gale has them pulled from his fingers.

He gives the two boys a triumphant smile before he starts looking over the papers

They're lists. Column after column of names and ages. It takes Gale a minute, he's still not entirely awake, but he finally figures out what he's looking at. The register of refugees from Twelve, he recognizes a handful of names.

The names aren't in alphabetical order, not grouped by family, or age, or even by gender, but in some order that only makes sense to whoever made the roster in the first place. By each name is a tick mark, some are stared and others have the star crossed out.

"Where did you two get this?" Gale didn't even have a list of the few survivors.

"Stole it," Rory tells him without batting an eye. "They had it out when we walked to 'class' so I made a distraction and Vick took it."

Gale almost makes the mistake of asking what Rory did to distract one of the stone faced men that watches over the children to make sure they get to their destination, but he thinks better of it. He'd heard his mother talking to his younger brother about a detention, so it was obviously more than just tripping someone.

"Why? What do you need it for?" They're whole family is in the little compartment they're huddled in now. The Everdeens and Thom and Bristol are all nearby. Most of their friends had made it out and were living along the same miserable corridor.

"We're looking for someone, obviously," Rory tells him as he rolls his eyes. "We can't do it during the day because they don't give us any free time because we're kids."

Rory's annoyance at his now nonexistent free time is something Gale can commiserate with. Everything in Thirteen is too rigid, and for Rory and Vick, who'd always had an abundance of empty hours to fill, it must be just as suffocating as not being allowed outdoors is to Gale.

"Who are you looking for?" Gale can't even imagine.

Rory and Vick exchange a look, silently communicating and deciding if they should let Gale in on their apparent secret. It stings a little. Gale's had to play at being their father for too long, he hasn't gotten to be just their brother and share in their silly little secrets. Vick and Rory are brothers and friends, Gale is their brother and parent, and that isn't nearly as fun.

For a minute he doesn't think they're going to tell him, Rory is clenching his jaw and making a small shake of his head, but Vick is too anxious, too easily intimidated, and he finally stops chewing his lip and sighs.

"We're looking for Madge."

It takes Gale a few seconds to process what he's said. He stares and blinks at his youngest brother slowly letting his words form a coherent thought.

Finally a scowl forms on his face, "She's dead."

Madge Undersee is dust and dirty and bone fragments. She's dead and there's no reason to look for a dead girl on a roster of the living.

Rory narrows his eyes, "She might not be."

"She is," Gale tells him shortly. She's dead and Rory and Vick are only hurting themselves pretending she isn't.

"But Gale," Vick begins, "she warned us. She knew what was coming. I bet that Capitol lady told her what to do. She probably saved her."

Gale groans, drops his head to the table. Birdy Alameda is just as dead as Madge. Beetee and Finnick had discussed her distress signal, her 'swan song' as they put it. She was blinked out in retaliation for all the trouble the Victors had causing the Capitol. She couldn't save herself and she certainly couldn't save Madge.

"Madge is dead," Gale snaps. They'd gone to her house, the still smoldering ruins of the Mayor's home, and found five bodies. Madge, the Mayor, his loopy wife, that horrible housekeeper, and another worker, all dead. "The sooner you accept that the better off you'll be."

A fantasy about dead girls coming back to life isn't going to help either one of them.

"But-" Vick starts, but Gale cuts him off.

"Haymitch even knows they're dead. He was their friend and he's accepted they're gone." Gale can't believe what he's about to say. "You should follow his example and accept reality."

"Give me a bottle and I'll get right to it," Rory says nastily. He glares at Gale. "Just give us the papers. We aren't hurting you by looking."

Gale grinds his teeth. "There is no 'Madge Undersee' in Thirteen. I looked."

It hadn't been one of the first things he'd done, but he had done it. Despite not seeing her in the woods, not hearing a word about her from any of the handful of Town people that managed to survive, he'd still thought maybe, somehow, she'd survived. Just like Vick said, she'd clearly known what was coming, she'd warned them after all, surely she'd have been able to escape herself.

There was no 'Madge' listed, no 'Undersee' among the survivors. Madge had become a true girl on fire.

"She's probably using a fake name," Vick tells him. "Since her dad i-was the mayor. This place might not be so nice to her, you know. So she probably gave them a fake name so she won't get questioned and stuff. I mean, look at what happened to Katniss' prep team."

Rory snorts, "Yeah, and they're about as dangerous as limp noodles. Madge is smart. She could be dangerous. They'd have her down for interrogation in a heartbeat."

Much as Gale would like to say they're wrong, his brothers aren't too far off the mark. Thirteen probably would see the Mayor's daughter, quiet little Madge, as a threat. She was too clever for them, and Gale doubts they would've simply let her dwell among the general population.

Vick nods, "Yeah. So we think she's using a fake name. Staying out of the way. We're checking the roster for girls in her age range and then we're going to check them out. Since we can only do it during certain times of the day it's taking us a while."

They're setting themselves up for disappointment, Gale knows that, and he can't stand to watch it.

He runs his hand over his face and mumbles to himself about them making this harder on everyone.

Standing, he reaches across the table, tries to grab Rory's papers, but he jerks them further away.

"Give them to me, Rory. You aren't going to find her and you need to accept that."

"Like you accepted that Katniss wasn't coming home during the first Games?" Rory snaps. His glare narrows. "You didn't accept the inevitable and we aren't going to just accept that Madge is dead. She could still be alive."

"Her house is flattened," Gale snarls. "They found what was left of her. Barely enough to bury, Rory. She's dead. Give me those papers and maybe I can talk them out of giving you more detention."

Rory stands. Gale is struck by how tall his brother has gotten since their arrival in Thirteen. He's still a little shorter than Gale had been at his age, but with Thirteen's steady meals and the lack of impending doom on their shoulders, he might out shoot him. At the moment he's able to easily look Gale in the eyes, shoot him the filthiest look he's able to muster.

"We aren't hurting you. If we want to find her then just let us. You go play with your new toys and your new friend and plot until you're blue in the face and leave us be." His look hardens a little more. "We care what happened to her. She's our friend. Our actual friend. Not like you and Katniss. We aren't trying to get in her pants; we just want her to be safe and happy wherever she is."

The accusation that he isn't really Katniss' friend, that he isn't concerned for her safety and happiness, stings. If Rory had hit him it would've hurt less.

Gale slams his hands on little wooden table and Vick jumps at the smacking noise.

"I am Katniss' friend. Keeping her safe it what I've been doing, and I want her to be happy."

Rory snorts, a sharp, harsh sounding thing.

"No. You want her to be happy with you. Peeta Mellark was a nice guy before the Capitol messed up his head. She could've been happy with him, but you wouldn't let her go. She might've been safe, we might've all been safe, if you'd have just used the right head for your thinking." His head shakes and his voice is cracking, fluctuating between his little boy voice and the deeper tone that will dominate someday. "You were selfish, Gale. You were selfish and stupid and if Madge is dead, then it's your fault."

He tosses his papers onto the table, several scatter, fall to the floor gently.

With one last dark look, Rory stomps out, leaving a bewildered looking Gale and a frightened looking Vick in his wake.

Gale stares at the doorway for several seconds, half expecting Rory to pop back in and laugh, tell Gale he's only joking and begin telling him about a girl he's been eyeing in class. Rory doesn't though, the doorway stays empty and the quiet settles heavily over the room.

Turning back to the table, Gale finds Vick crouched down, picking up the fallen papers and re-stacking them.

Dropping down, Gale picks up the few nearest him and hands them to Vick who whispers a barely audible 'thank you'.

When they finish, Vick folds the papers over and offers them to Gale. "Here."

Gale shakes his head, "No, keep it."

He can't steal their hope, even if it's futile and potentially harmful to their happiness.

Straightening back up, Gale flops down into the chair again, it groans under his weight. His eyes, tired and red rimmed at this point, slowly settle on Vick.

He's taller too, almost Rory's size, but thinner, a skinny spring shoot that hasn't quite added its girth yet. Gale is positive Vick will be taller than both he and Rory, and it almost makes him laugh to think about it. Only a small, weary smile finds its way onto his face though, as he watches Vick shuffle uncomfortably on his feet.

"I know you think we're being stupid," Vick says, eyes fixed on the floor. "We probably are. You saw Madge's house and…but it doesn't hurt for us to look, does it?"

Gale stares at Vick. He seems so small and Gale feels like a bully for having snapped at him and Rory. They weren't hurting anyone. Maybe they just needed to prove to themselves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Madge isn't coming back. It might be cathartic for them, like going into the woods has always been for Gale. Looking for someone who just isn't there, settling the matter firmly in their minds, might be the only way to fill that hole left empty by the absence.

"No, Vick, it doesn't hurt," Gale finally tells him.

Vick nods, tucks the papers under his arm before heading to the doorway and back to bed. He stops when his foot meets the scuffed threshold.

"I don't think you're selfish," he whispers.

Gale turns in the chair, eyes his brother sadly.

Vick takes a step toward him. "I think you're stressed. A lot of bad things have happened, and I think you do the best you can. I know that isn't easy."

Gale swats at his eyes. Long days and too much dark thinking have finally caught up with him after Rory's accusations.

Suddenly, Vick's too thin arms wrap around his neck. "I love you, Gale. Even if Madge is dead, it isn't your fault. Rory's just…upset. They treat us like we can't handle taking care of ourselves when we've been doing it for years. He just wants to do something they aren't scheduling for us. Madge never treated us like stupid kids and we just miss her."

A few tears finally escape Gale's eyes, trickle down his face and onto Vick's shirt. He nods into his brother's shoulder and sniffles back a few more tears.

When Vick lets go, Gale rubs his palms to his eyes until he sees stars and the moisture is gone. He pulls his hands away and nods at Vick.

"I understand."

He and Rory are a little too much alike. They need their freedom and not to be told when and where and what to do. They need air and sunlight, two things District Thirteen is desperately lacking. The dark, colorless world is smothering them both out, shortening their tempers and turning them against each other.

They're safe in Thirteen, they're alive, but they're not really living.

Vick nods, turns to leave, but Gale stops him.

"I care what happened to Madge too," he tells him. It's true. He never thought it would be, that he would care what happened to the Mayor's spoiled little daughter, but he does. He might not have spared her much thought since they came to Thirteen, but not because he doesn't care.

It's that he can't do anything for her. She's dead, and as terrible as that is, he can't change it. Gale has to focus on the living, that's how it's always been. If thinking about her would bring her back to life he would do it in a heartbeat. Madge Undersee wasn't a bad person, in fact, she was a very good one. She'd probably died because she'd gone back to the Town to try and save her mad mother and who knows who else, and if that wasn't the mark of a good person Gale isn't sure what is.

"I have to focus on saving us, Vick. She died trying to save people, and I have to honor that sacrifice by finishing her work. I have to help this country. It's what she would've wanted."

Vick stares for a minute, then a slow smile forms on his face and he nods. "'Night, Gale."

He sets the papers on the table, across from Gale.

"'Night, Vick."

Gale watches his brother disappear into the dark living room before turning back to the table. He runs his finger over a ridge in the wood before sighing. His eyes slowly wander over to the stack of papers Vick had left and he reaches across the table and pulls them to him.

Slowly, he begins flipping through the pages, eyes scanning over each name, hoping to see one that jumps out at him as blatantly false. He picks up the pencil Rory had dropped and begins making tick marks, staring girls that might possibly be Madge Undersee in disguise.

Gale mentally adds 'lack of time with my brothers' to the list of things he hates about Thirteen as he makes his way through the list.

It isn't part of his daily schedule, looking for a ghost among the living, but Gale suddenly feels like it should be. It's a stolen chunk of time, one that will hopefully let Rory and Vick know that even if he isn't around as much anymore and even if he thinks what they're doing is only going to heap sadness onto them, he's still there for them.


	42. Sibling Snap Shot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

"Why can't I go with momma?"

Glen is looking up with wide eyes and a puckered lip, daring Vick to tell him why he's being separated from his mom and dad. Vick wishes he could let his nephew go with his parents; it's stressful all around for Glen to be stuck on the outside with his uncle.

Vick isn't sure what he's supposed to tell Glen about what is going on in the surgery suite.

'Sorry, bud, your mother is about to get gutted like a fish so they can rip your new sibling out',seemed like something that would earn him, at the very least, a hard slap on the head from Gale. He doesn't even want to think about what Madge would do to him for exposing her precious baby's mind to such a graphic thought.

If Vick didn't live in the dinky little apartments across from the hospital, the ones that had cheap rent for the residents at the hospital, he would still have beaten his mother and siblings to the hospital. Despite the fact that the C-section is scheduled, they've known the date of their newest family's entrance into the world for months, Vick had worked triage the night before. It had been his way of ensuring that Madge's surgical suite was set up properly. His sleep deprived body is certainly making him pay for it now.

Vick wishes he could be back there helping at least prep Madge for surgery. What good is being a resident with the ob/gyn team if he can't even use his lowly status to sneak into his best friend and sister-in-law's delivery?

Wait…that sounded wrong…

Looking around for something shiny to hopefully distract Glen with, Vick spots a vending machine and raises his hand to try and send his nephew's attention to an overly processed and sugary treat.

Glen isn't having it though. He crosses his arms and wrinkles his nose. "I wanna go with momma and daddy."

Vick sighs. "I'm sorry, Glen. You can't go back there."

"Why not?" Glen flops over on Vick's legs and groans dramatically. "I wanna see the baby."

"You'll see her soon," Vick reassures him, hoping he's soothing Glen's anxiety. "Ga-Your dad will come out those doors right there and he'll have the baby with him. That's what happened when you were born."

"And then we'll see which one of is wins that double chocolate chip cookie for guessing if it's baby 'Miles' or baby 'Savanna'," Rory's voice booms across the room.

Finally.

"Uncle Wory!" Glen runs at Rory, who scoops him up and tosses him over his shoulder.

"Don't rough house in the waiting room, boys," Vick hears his mother tell them as she step through the door, shaking water off her hair as she does.

A glum looking Posy follows shortly after, her hair flat and soggy.

"Rode the motorcycle, huh?" Vick asks, not even bothering to hide his smirk at Posy's annoyance.

"I don't know why mom likes riding the stupid thing with Rory," Posy grumbles, trying to untangle her hair with her fingers.

"You're just pissed you had to ride in the sidecar," Rory snickers.

Their mother gives him a sharp look as she takes Glen from him and mouths the words 'language'.

Vick is pretty sure Glen has heard far more colorful language from Gale, Madge has complained about it on more than one occasion. He decides to keep that tidbit to himself though. No reason to upset his mother and release Gale's fury on being 'tattled' on down on his head.

Posy finally gets her hair righted, shoots Rory a dark look, then smiles at Glen. "And how is my favorite baby nephew?"

"I'm not a-a baby, Tia Posy," Glen huffs. "And I'm you only nephew."

Posy grumbles something about Katy-Jo Lewes teaching Glen 'tongues' during her visits. She hates being called 'tia' and doesn't understand why Madge's friend insists on being called by the title despite having had the name explained to her several times.

Despite her increasingly sour mood, Posy smiles when Glen reaches over and kisses her cheek.

"You took forever to get here," Vick tells his mother as she settles down with Glen on her lap.

She doesn't look up, just begins fussing with Glen's wild hair as she talks. "You can blame your sister for that. Thinks she's going to run into one of your buddies up here and wouldn't stop fussing with her hair."

His mother smirks at Posy, seated across from them, glaring irritably.

"I did not," she crosses her arms and slouches a little further in the cracked plastic seat.

Rory grins and flops over on her. "Of course you didn't, baby sister."

He then runs his hand through her hair, turning it into a disheveled mess. Posy lets out a low shriek, stands up and glares at Rory before storming off, to find a bathroom to straighten out her hair no doubt.

"You have a death wish, don't you Rory?" Vick asks as he watches his sister storming down the hall.

"I'm preserving her innocence. Your girl-part baby doctor friends are cads," Rory answers.

Vick rolls his eyes. Cads? Who bought Rory a thesaurus?

"What's 'reserving her in-o-scents' mean?" Glen asks, looking between his all knowing grandmother and his sometimes knowing uncles.

Vick shrinks down in his seat to avoid his mother's narrowed glare. Rory follows suit, pulling his cap down over his eyes.

"Nothing, pumpkin. Your uncles are being silly," their mother tells Glen as she pulls him back on her lap and strokes his now much less messy hair.

Vick thanks his lucky stars that Glen is a sharp kid, a trait he got, Vick is certain, from his mother. Glen arches his eyebrows up as he looks over at Vick from his seat on his Grammy, letting his uncle know that while he's dropping the subject settle for now, he'll bring it up again later, out of Grammy's earshot and he'll demand answers.

Hopefully he corners Rory first. He's the idiot that brought it up in the first place, so he should be the one to have to deal with the explanation, or fake-splanation as they'd started calling them. Poor Glen is going to have trust issues when he's older, almost entirely owing to his creative uncles.

"How much longer?" Rory asks. He's tossed his legs over the little rail into Posy's unoccupied seat and reclining sloppily against the wall.

A little annoyed, Rory hasn't been sitting in the ancient waiting room for the last hour with the increasingly agitated Glen, Vick shrugs. The section should be over in a few minutes, if it isn't already, but Rory needs a little anticipation in his life.

"Oh, come on," Rory sits up. "You know. You're just not telling me to be an as-"

"Rory," their mother cuts him off and glances down at Glen who has once again sensed an impending flub and poised himself to catch it.

"-suageous…jerk."

The thesaurus strikes again. Unfortunately, it hadn't told Rory what he was about to say made absolutely no sense. Maybe, Vick thinks, for his next birthday Rory needs to ask for a dictionary.

Just as Vick is about to tell Rory that, one of his friends, a curly haired girl named Tullia, ghost by the door that leads back to the operating room. She stops for a second, in front of the little window in the door, and gives Vick a thumbs up before walking on.

Vick lets out a long breath and smiles at his mother. "I think the family just got a little bigger."

Glen sits up straight, stops struggling to escape his grandmother's firm hold. His eyes widen in anticipation. "The baby's here. Where is she?"

"Or he," Rory adds, earning him a sharp look from Glen.

"No she," Glen corrects him confidently.

For the next ten minutes, Glen bobs in front of the swinging doors that lead back to where his parents and new sibling are just out of his grasp. Vick tries to reassure him that is takes a few minutes to get the baby ready, and Madge, so Glen should sit and wait patiently.

"I wait-ti-ted forever," Glen grumbles, tossing his hands up in the air in frustration.

Just as Vick is about to suggest Rory take his one and only nephew down to the cafeteria to get something for lunch, a task that requires more patience than Vick's sleep deprived mind can muster at the moment, the dull gray doors swing open and Gale steps out.

He's in a pair of stiff paper scrubs, special sets specifically kept on hand for fathers during c-sections. They've put a surgical cap on him, a fluffy, airy thing, and Vick can see Gale's wild hair sticking up under the puffy top.

Wrapped up tight, not making so much as a cooing noise, is the newest family member.

"Finally," Glen mutters before running up to his dad. "Lemme see!"

Gale chuckles and drops down, pulls the blankets down a little from around the baby's head so Glen can better see her.

"Say hello, Savanna," Gale tells her.

The baby just yawns and closes her eyes. Glen smiles and reaches out, gently smoothes the mess of dark hair on the baby's head.

"I knew you was a girl."

A hand grabs Vick and he startles slightly before he realizes it's his mother. The anticipation is too much for her and she's started silently crying.

In the blink of an eye she's over at her oldest son's side, fussing over his paper garb and fawning over the baby.

"Oh, Gale, she's just perfect."

"So she takes after her mother," Rory snickers.

Vick snorts and tries to cover it with a very obvious cough.

"No she looks like Gale," Posy, who'd finally returned from the bathroom, huffs, clearly missing her brothers' jab. "Look at her hair."

She runs her hand over her niece's tiny head, already covered in thick dark hair.

Rory rolls his eyes, "She's a baby, Posy. She looks like a lumpy root."

Vick thinks Rory's very lucky Madge isn't around. If she heard him call her baby a lumpy anything she would probably tear his face off, and honestly, after the day she's had, Gale would probably help her do it.

Actually, Vick thinks he might tell her when they're finally allowed to see her.

"She doesn't look like a root, Rory," their mother shoots him a look. "She looks like you all when you were babies."

Rory breathes out, says something that sounds like 'need your head checked' before scooting out of his mother's swinging range.

Vick doubts his mother's memory, just a little, too. He definitely thinks Rory has it right in thinking Madge's genetic contribution is the more obvious of the two. Other than the hair. Though as one of the older doctors had pointed out, after delivering a baby to a couple and having the child look absolutely like neither of them, despite their insistence the he did, 'people see what they want'.

Glen, for the first time in his short life, ignores the bickering. He's solely absorbed in his new sister.

"Can I hold her? Can I feed her? When can we take her home? Is momma coming out in a min-"

Gale doesn't miss a beat, "No. No. In a few days, and they're taking your mom to her room just as soon as I get back in there with the baby."

He gives them the room number as he turns to leave, telling Glen to be good for Grammy.

"When we get in the room you can help your mom hold her, okay?"

The promise of seeing his mother and getting to hold his much anticipated baby sister is enough to contain all of Glen's energy. He grabs his Grammy's hand and begins tugging her toward the hall.

"We gotta go. We hafta find the room," he tells her. When she isn't fast enough on her feet, Glen circles her and starts pushing her from behind. "Come on, Grammy!"

"Why don't we have your Uncle Vick lead the way? He should know his way around this place," Vick hears his mother tell Glen.

Vick starts to tell her he gets lost on a daily basis, and that at the moment the only useful thing he knows is where the good coffee pot is. Down the hall, badge in, and behind the mounting stack of discarded plastic ware. He keeps that to himself, though, as he yawns and takes the lead.

After taking the wrong elevator and ending up on the general surgical floor, then taking a left turn at the outpatient center instead of a right, Vick finally steers the irritable family to the right floor.

"How do you get lost in a place you're in literally every day?" Rory asks, his expression completely baffled.

Vick glares. "I take the back way. You know? The staff only elevator."

He gets lost going that way too, but he doesn't tell his brother that. It isn't Vick's fault the hospital is a patchwork that feels like it's constantly shifting. Every day things seem to be in different places. It's like the administration wants to keep them on their feet.

Glen squeals and runs into the room, flying past Gale and landing on the bed next to Madge. "Momma!"

He immediately starts bombarding her with questions. He asks about the surgery, if he can hold the baby now, when will they be getting lunch, can he stay with them for the night, and how big can the cookie be that Uncle Rory owes him for guessing that the baby was going to be a girl?

Far from looking overwhelmed, which is how Vick feels when Glen starts firing off his rapid fire questions at him, Madge just smiles and smoothes her son's hair down in the back.

"Sit right here and you can hold her with me," she tells him. Her eyes are heavy, doughy from the medication and drop in adrenaline, but she still glows, radiates happiness and warmth.

Gale gently carries the baby to her, places her in Madge's waiting arms before settling himself at Glen's other side to supervise.

Almost reverently, Glen watches Madge adjust the blankets before she smiles at him.

"You have to be very careful, okay? Support her head," she tells him as she carefully puts the baby in Glen's waiting arms.

Gale does most of the holding, wrapping his arms around his son to provide almost all of the support. Glen is really just there for the baby to sit on, but he's clearly thrilled just the same.

"That child has no idea what he's getting into," Rory chuckles from somewhere over Vick's shoulder.

"Oh, be quiet," Posy grumbles.

"Really," Rory suddenly throws one arm around Vick's neck and the other over Posy's shoulder. "Just ask Vicki. Once the younger sibling comes, it's all downhill."

Posy scoffs and Vick rolls his eyes.

"He should ask his dad," Vick says as he tries to free himself from Rory's clutches. "He had three to put up with."

"I don't count," Rory says dismissively, waving his hand on Posy's shoulder. "I was the perfect younger sibling."

The perfectly annoying younger sibling, Vick thinks.

"Gale's threatened you more than Vick and I combined," Posy points out.

Rory waves his hand again. "He's always been threatened by charismatic personality. Jealousy is an ugly thing."

"You don't even know what 'charismatic' means," Vick grumbles. Rory probably thinks it has something to do with his hair.

"Guess Gale isn't the only jealous one," Rory snickers as he lets Vick and Posy go.

Posy shakes her head and walks over to their mother, getting in line to hold the baby if Glen ever relinquishes her. Rory knocks Vick in the side with his elbow to get his attention.

"Wanna help me pick out a cookie for the munchkin? I'll even throw in a cup of coffee for your baggy eyed self."

"The coffee is free, you idiot," Vick tells him.

"And worth every penny, I'm sure," Rory comments without batting an eye.

As they make their quiet exit, Vick looks back at the happy family on the bed, still marveling over the baby, and smiles.

Glen looks up for a half a second, deep in thought, then turns to Gale. "Dad, do we have to 'reserve 'Vanna's in-o-scents'? Like Uncle Rory and Vick do with Tia Posy."

Gale frowns. "Do we what?"

Before Glen even starts to explain, Vick and Rory are out the door. They have a cookie to find after all.


	43. It is a foreign world, pt 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
> 
> AN: The title is from 'All Quiet on the Western Front' by Erich Maria Remarque. It seemed fitting, considering all the characters have been through.

Gale hadn't had a good night.

Madge had known he wouldn't. Being in Twelve, even for the few hours to see the new cemetery, the memorial, is stressful for him. Even with his string of good nights, nights without whimpers and tears, this trip was bound to drag up the dormant monsters in his mind. After the long, restless night, she's more sure than ever of their decision to keep their stay short. The phantoms that plague his mind in the darkest part of the night are a little bit nearer to him while he sleeps in the newly built hotel, the only hotel, in District Twelve, and that's too close for comfort.

He'd been worried about Madge having that problem. The hotel was built directly over the now crumbled and crushed, brushed away ruins of her childhood home. Their room, a tiny, plain thing just big enough for the bed and a small dresser, sits in the exact same spot as her mother's bedroom. Looking out the window, Madge had the same view of the square she'd had the day Gale had been whipped, the day she'd sobbed, begged her mother to help and she'd given Madge some of her morphling.

Instead of distressing Madge, it comforts her.

District Twelve isn't dead. It will probably never be a booming place like Two or Four, but it will grow back. Like the fields of Ten after they'd been burned, Twelve will break through the ash and return to life, a peaceful, hopeful place. There's no reason to leave the piles of debris around, a grim reminder to everyone. People had died so others could live, and building over the ruins is just another step toward ultimate healing.

Carefully, she unwraps herself from Gale's arms, crawls out from under him and begins getting dressed. She'd spotted a man with a cart overflowing with fruits on the walk back from the cemetery the evening before. He's already out, Madge can see him standing in the cobbled square, waiting for customers, from the window. She hopes he has some strawberries, maybe even some from the land beyond where the fence used to be.

From behind her, she hears a grunt.

"Come back to bed," Gale groans, just barely lifting his head and reaching out for her.

Staying out of his reach, he'll pull her back into bed if he can, Madge smiles and finishes straightening her blouse. "I'm going down to get us some breakfast."

He doesn't look as though he cares much for breakfast as he shakes his head and replaces Madge's body with a pillow before flopping, face down, into the wallowed out spot she'd been sleeping in.

Snorting, Madge rolls her eyes and makes her way past him, whispering, "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Gale just grunts another acknowledgement at that.

The stairs are a little narrower than the ones that had been in Madge's house, they creak a bit when she hops down them. The carpet isn't as luxurious, but it's newer. The entire hotel has a freshly built smell. Wood and fibers all mixing together in the cool spring air blowing in from the open windows.

Madge jogs out the open double doors, past one of the men that runs the hotel, a former miner that gave Gale a discount despite Gale's insistence that he not.

"I have money," he'd told the man, Sanderson, Madge thinks is his name.

Sanderson just shook his head. "You saved our lives. I can't charge you full price. You're a hero."

Gale hadn't looked particularly happy at that, had shot Madge several weary looks before they'd gotten to their room.

"You deserve some of the credit," he'd told her.

"A lot of people deserve some of the credit," Madge had corrected him simply. Her father and mother, Birdy, and dozens of nameless faceless men and women that are dead because of their efforts to save Twelve.

He hadn't argued with her. She hasn't been able to tell him, even after all this time, what had happened the night Twelve had been bombed. Katy-Jo Lewes tells her it's a coping mechanism, avoiding that dark chapter in her life. It's too much to think about, and even though she knows she'll have to face it eventually, that eventually hasn't come yet.

Crossing the square, she comes up to the cart and gives the man a small smile. He barely returns it over the top of his paper.

"Do you have bags?" Madge asks.

He sighs, reaches under the back of his cart and pulls out a small paper bag. Without so much as a 'help yourself', he hands it to her and returns his attention to the newspaper.

Ignoring his curtness, Madge begins picking through the strawberries, filling her little bag with only the juiciest looking ones.

Just as she's about to ask him how much for her bag, Madge hears something drop a few feet behind her, make a cracking noise against the cobbled ground, and turns to see what the splattering had been.

She just barely has time to register the mess of eggs, all in a broken pile of yolk and shells at a man's feet, when she hears a voice she hasn't heard in years.

"Madge?"

It takes her a second, but not any longer, to look up and see the now weathered and worn face of Peeta Mellark.

Just like Gale, Peeta is beaten by the terrors that had been brought upon him.

He looks so tired, so much older than he had. His hair isn't quite as bright as the last time she'd seen it, Madge is sure she spots a gray hair or two woven through the blond. There are scars on his arms, probably more that Madge can't see, that she doesn't want to see.

His eyes are wide, disbelieving, not the kind blue ones that had twinkled up at her during class assignments when they'd been children. Gray shadows are under them from long nights and an emptiness in their depths from dark dreams overshadow the warmth that had once filled them. It's a haunted look that Madge knows will probably stay there for the rest of his life.

The war, the torture, has made him almost into someone she almost doesn't recognize.

Despite the changes, the hollowness of his being, Madge can still sense Peeta. Just like with Gale, Madge can still see the good person that had come so close to being destroyed peeking through the broken exterior.

She smiles sadly at him. "Hello Peeta."

Over the past few years Madge has written him, Katniss, and Mr. Abernathy, several times, but never received any sort of reply.

"They aren't who they used to be," Gale had told her as she'd fretted over the lack of response. "They probably just don't have anything to say."

Madge thinks he's secretly happy none of them have ever tried to connect with her. Gale still thinks he doesn't deserve happiness, despite Madge's efforts to help him see otherwise. She knows he's certain that if Madge were to hear Katniss and Peeta's story she would shun him. It's ridiculous, she's seen him at his worst, but the Rebellion had damaged something in him that Madge knows she may never be able to fix.

Peeta stares at her, blinks rapidly, as though trying to rid himself of some horrible phantasm, and it occurs to Madge that maybe he is. There's no telling how many ghosts haunt him. After what the Capitol did to him, maybe visions of the dead are something he deals with daily.

Finally, he takes a step forward. "You-you're real?"

Madge's mind vaguely recalls Gale mentioning playing a game called 'Real or Not Real' to help Peeta ground himself. It's unimaginable to her, the thought of not being able to trust your own mind, memories, never knowing what is real or not. A sharp pain shoots through her chest for Peeta. He'll probably always be trapped in the unreliable world of his mind.

Taking a deep breath, Madge nods, hoping it's what Peeta needs.

He makes no move of acknowledgment so Madge takes a step back, bumps into the cart and knocks her bag of strawberries to the ground. The little cart owner doesn't say a word, and out the corner of her eye Madge sees that he's vanished. Maybe Peeta's had a fit near him before and he doesn't want to be around for it, Madge doesn't know, but it bodes ominously to her.

"Peeta," a rough sounding voice calls for him from somewhere behind him.

When he doesn't respond, doesn't drop his eyes from Madge, someone jogs from across the square. Madge doesn't see them; she can't tear her own eyes from Peeta. She's preparing herself for an attack, deciding how best to hit him without hurting him too badly, when a hand comes to a rest on Peeta's broad shoulder.

"Peeta, what's the matter?" Katniss appears beside him, concern etched into her features. She follows his eye line and makes an odd noise when she finally spots what has him so tense. "Madge?"

Katniss looks every bit as battered and scarred as Peeta, maybe even more so. She's thin, too thin, her clothes don't hang well on her and Madge wonders if she simply doesn't eat or if she runs herself into the ground to battle her own nightmares, like Gale had done for so long, and all she takes in burns away on her bones. Her gray eyes, just as hollow and darkened as Peeta's, seem to look right through Madge, expecting her to evaporate into the dust she's supposed to be.

She shakes her head, blinks at the ground, trying to cast Madge away, back to the land of the dead, but when Katniss looks up and sees she's still very much there a pained smile forms on her cracked and dry lips.

"Madge?"

Biting her lip, Madge nods again.

It happens so quickly Madge almost screams. Peeta lunges at her, and at first she thinks he's going to strangle her just like he'd tried to do with Katniss all those years ago, but instead he crushes her in a hug.

Bewildered, Madge lets out a shaky breath against his shoulder. He smells like vanilla, and Madge instantly wonders if he bakes still. She hopes he does. Tears begin soaking the shoulder of her blouse and she feels Peeta shake against her.

"You're real."

Madge nods into his shoulder before realizing he might just think she's wiping her nose on him.

"Yeah, I'm real," she tells him quietly.

Finally, he pulls back, holds her at arm's length and studies her with a smile. A smile like the old Peeta often gave her after a particularly hard day at school. He gives her shoulder a squeeze. "Why are you here?"

Not missing the dark look Katniss gives her, Madge quickly takes Peeta's hand and squeezes it before taking a step back.

"I came to see the cemetery," she tells them softly. "I needed to see it."

Peeta's smile dims, fades into a somber upturn. "I understand."

"Is it nice?" Katniss asks, looking genuinely curious.

Madge starts to ask why she hasn't gone, but when she notices Peeta's expression, just as eager to hear about the newest addition to the District despite the fact that it's just a short walk from them, it occurs to her that there might be too many ghosts haunting the memorial for them. If seeing living breathing Madge had caused Peeta so much distress, seeing the cold stones with the names of their loved ones, their dearly departed, firmly underfoot might only have served to wake the demons in their minds that they work so hard to keep at bay.

"It's lovely," Madge tells them. She doesn't elaborate, doesn't describe it. Whatever they have it built as in their minds is what they need the memorial to be and she won't be the one to break that image.

Katniss nods, frowns at the ground, splattered with yolk and egg shells. "Good."

"You should come out to the house," Peeta says as he crouches down to pick up the few strawberries that have rolled near to him. "I made some cheese rolls and Katniss has some stew on. You could tell us about where you live now, what you do, how you got out. You didn't say much in your letters."

Madge takes the berries from him and holds them loosely in her hands.

She hadn't expected to run into them. Not that she had planned on avoiding them, but she'd assumed they would side step her, especially since the snubbing of her letters.

Gale and she had come in the afternoon before and had a departing ticket on the train that leaves in only a couple of hours. Less than a day in total.

"The less time there the better," Gale had told her. After last night, with some of his worst nightmares in a very long while, Madge is inclined to agree.

Peeta's expression is so hopeful, so bright and like the boy she remembers, that Madge hates to tell him 'no', but there isn't much choice.

"I'm leaving in a few hours," she explains. "I'm sorry. There just isn't time."

A small frown takes the place of the eager expression on Peeta's face, but he recovers it quickly, forming a sad smile. "Maybe next time then."

There won't be a next time. This is a singular trip, once in a lifetime, for both Gale and Madge. It's the closing of a chapter and once it's ended there will be no going back. There can't be.

Katniss seems to pick up on Madge's wariness, crosses her arms over her chest and sets her tired eyes on some fixed point beyond Madge.

"You won't be coming back, will you?" She finally asks.

It almost brings a smile to Madge's face, that Katniss and not Peeta has picked up on her thoughts. Peeta, the old Peeta, has left his mark on her.

After a minute of quiet, Madge nods.

"I don't want to," she finally says. "I was happy just knowing they remembered us, but…"

"You needed to see they were telling the truth?" Peeta finally supplies.

His astute observation of her sentiment is a little rattling. Peeta knows what lies the government is willing tell just to placate its citizens.

Madge nods and feels a few tears slip down her cheeks, wipes them away with the back of her hand.

"Must be nice," Katniss says, a little sharply, "to have the option not to come back."

Katniss' barb stings in Madge's chest. She and Peeta weren't given the choice of not returning to Twelve, and don't have the option of leaving. It's the beginning and the end of their sorrows, and their trapped there for the rest of their lives.

It's not fair to them, and Madge almost asks where they would go if given the choice. It's a hopeless question though. There's nowhere void of ghosts for Katniss and Peeta. Their ghosts live in their heads much more than even Gale's do.

"I'm sorry," Madge finally manages to say, voice a little shaky. She curses her own weakness. Katniss would never be so fragile, she's been through so much worse than Madge and she's still standing. It's no wonder Gale loved her first.

A thousand old doubts flood Madge's head, whispering hateful things at her as she stares at Katniss' feet. She'll never be as strong as Katniss, never an equal enough partner for Gale. Madge will only ever be a consolation prize, a warm body to seek comfort in during the cold nights. Gale will never love her as much as he had Katniss.

"It isn't your fault," Katniss finally sighs.

Slowly, Madge pulls her eyes from the ground, focuses on Katniss.

She's beaten down, a hollowed out version of her former self. A small, sad smile forms on her lips, and for a second the old Katniss, the Katniss that had sacrificed herself for Prim, ventured into the woods to feed her family, sold strawberries to the Mayor, peeks through.

The Katniss that had been is still there, buried deeply under the scars, slowly healing. But just like Gale, she'll never be the same. Time and suffering have altered her forever.

The girl Gale had loved is gone, just like the boy that had loved her has been consumed by the ravages of a costly war.

Madge takes a step forward, holds a strawberry out to Katniss. "I'm still sorry."

It isn't much, but an apology is all she has to offer them. The most sincere thing she can bring to the table. She can't offer to help them, Madge has no more power now than she had when she was the Mayor's daughter. The only difference is, now the illusion is gone, the only thing left is the girl that was always there and her heartfelt need to try to make things better, even when she knows she can't.

For a minute Katniss stares at the berry before finally taking it, gently hodling it in her palm.

"Thank you," she says, just barely audible above the gentle wind.

Her eyes catch Madge's, both a little shiny, and the ghost of a smile floats over her face. All Madge can think to do is return it with a watery feeling one of her own.

"Will you keep writing?" Peeta finally asks.

A frown forms on Madge's lips. "Do you want me to? You never write back."

Peeta and Katniss exchange a look.

"Haymitch didn't want us to," Katniss finally says, stuffing the berry in her bag. "He thought it would encourage you to come back."

A chuckle escapes Peeta's chest. "He's got such flawless logic."

Clearly.

Madge nods, tries not to roll her eyes. Mr. Abernathy had been trying to help her move on, in his own strange way. She supposes she should thank him, even if she mostly just feels annoyed with him at the moment.

"That's why I didn't plan on seeing you," Madge tells them. "I'd almost convinced myself to stop writing, actually. I thought I might be wearing you out, or that you just didn't want any reminders of…anything."

Peeta smiles, reaches out and places a warm hand on her shoulder. "Reminders aren't a bad thing. We like your letters. We don't get to see for ourselves what our sacrifices have won. At least we get to hear about them, a little anyway, when you write."

"You could be a little more cryptic though," he tells her with a wink.

Madge grins back. "I'll work on that."

"You came out here alone? That's brave of you," Katniss asks, squinting into the distance for a person she's sure exists.

It shouldn't catch her off guard, but it does. Of course Katniss wouldn't think Madge was capable of traveling by herself. In her eyes, Madge is still just the Mayor's daughter, not the girl that warned the District to run before the bombing started, not a girl that had watched her District burn, certainly not a girl that had helped fight in District Ten during the Rebellion.

It stings that despite the fact that Madge is standing in front of her, Katniss doesn't see her, and Madge wonders if she ever really did.

She may not bear the scars Katniss, Peeta, and Gale do, and she knows she hasn't suffered like they did, but she certainly hasn't come through to this point unscathed.

"I went through a lot all by myself," Madge answers evenly.

Before the Rebellion Madge had lived an almost painfully solitary life and during the Rebellion she'd confined herself to only a handful of people, not really wanting to get too close. She's depended on herself for company for most of her life, and as far as Peeta and Katniss need to be concerned, that hasn't changed.

She doesn't mention Gale is probably just now getting dressed in their hotel room. Not because it would prove Katniss right that Madge needs her hand held, can't make the journey across the country by herself, but because as much as Katniss' lack of faith in her stings, Madge knows that telling her that Gale is near, maybe even looking out the window of the room at the moment, might do her damage.

Gale had told Madge about Katniss state after the Rebellion, after Prim's death, about how she would always connect Gale with the bomb that took her beloved sister. Gale, who had been Katniss' dearest friend, possibly more, is now a physical reminder of the anger and desperation, of the lies and violence that took Prim's life.

Katniss needs protected from the memory of Gale, and even if Madge feels slighted, she'll do her part to keep Katniss safe from those demons. She's seen with Gale just how dangerous a person's mind can be and she can't do that to the girl she, at least at one time, called her friend.

For a few seconds Katniss just stares at her, expression as unreadable as ever, then a small smile, just a barely perceivable upturn at the corners of her mouth, forms on her face.

"I know you did," she finally says, shifting the backpack on her shoulders and refocusing her eyes on the ground.

It isn't quite an acknowledgment that Madge is capable of surviving by herself, but it's a start.

Eventually, Madge thinks, she'll tell them about Gale and her. Slowly, in pieces, introducing them to the good man he's become. She can't erase the painful results of his actions, but she can hopefully help them to see that he's learned from them and is making amends.

"You should go see Haymitch," Peeta tells her, pointing to a row of shops in the distance. "He'll be unbearable if we tell him we saw you and he didn't."

"He's always unbearable," Katniss mutters, but there's a hint of an affectionate smile under her scowl.

Annoyed as she is with him for not responding to her letter, and telling Peeta and Katniss not to write back either, Madge feels a pull to see Mr. Abernathy. He's a tie to her past, much more solid than Gale, Katniss, or even Peeta could ever be.

He's an old friend, a warm hug, a gruff pat on the shoulder from a childhood that was often anything but happy.

Peeta pulls her into another tight hug, presses a quick kiss to her cheek. "Take care, Madge. Don't stop writing, please."

Pulling back, his eyes are shimmering and he sniffles, giving her one last hopeful smile.

"Every chance I get, Peeta," Madge tells him, returning his smile.

Katniss eyes her warily, and for a second Madge expects her to simply nod her goodbye and turn to leave, not unlike she'd so often done on Madge's back porch all those years ago.

Instead, she pushes forward, quickly but timidly throwing her arms around Madge's shoulders.

"You were always a lot braver than we thought, and I never meant to say you weren't," she tells her quietly. "I'm glad you made it out."

Stupid, warm tears spring to Madge's eyes. It isn't something to cry about, but hearing Katniss Everdeen, the Girl on Fire, the Spark to the Rebellion, the bravest girl in their nation, tell her she knows Madge isn't as weak as everyone always thought and that she's glad she isn't part of the dead dust of the District, is a bit overwhelming.

"Thank you," is all Madge can manage to say in return, her voice thick and wet sounding.

Katniss pulls back, gives Madge a short little nod, keeping her eyes on the ground as she turns back to Peeta.

He smiles, takes her hand and they walk away, into the slowly growing trickle of people coming out for the day.

Just like Gale, they deserve happiness, even if they don't always think they do. They deserve peace and quiet after all the terror they've seen, all they've been forced through. Peeta and Katniss will grown back, just like the grass and the trees and the shops in Twelve, fresh and new. They'll always have the scars, the bitter reminders of the past, but like the District, they'll survive.

Madge smiles at their backs and hopes that, like Gale, they have more good nights than bad and that they help one another chase the demons away more than they drag them to each other.

If anyone deserves good nights, it's Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark.


	44. Fathers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
> 
> AN: Happy Father's Day! Even though my dad won't see this, he's still the best and I hope he has a great day.

It's Sunday, Gale's favorite day of the week. The only day he gets to spend entirely with his dad.

Mesmerized, he watches his dad finish off the snare, memorizing each step.

"Maybe next week you can try to set one or two," he tells Gale.

Before his dad can think enough on what he's said, possibly take it back, Gale nods eagerly. "Yeah!"

His dad smiles, his eyes twinkling down at Gale, and he pats him on the head. "Bit eager aren't you?"

"I'm big enough to help now," Gale tells him, setting his jaw firmly. "I-I can set one today."

"But you don't have to," his dad tells him, giving him a gentle prod back toward the District, it's getting late. "We're finished for the day."

Gale crosses his arms, shoots his dad a soured look. "I could've if you'd've let me."

A wide smile stretches across his dad's scruffy face and he chuckles, ruffles Gale's hair. "Planning on setting out on your own sometime soon?"

"No," Gale says, jumping over a downed log and nearly losing his balance. "But I gotta know how to catch things for when I'm grown up. Like you."

With a nod, his dad picks Gale up, deciding to carry him the rest of the way. Or at least until they reached the fence.

"When you're grown up like me, huh?" His dad says. "With a wife and kids?"

Gale nods, "Uh-huh."

"How many kids?" He asks, looking genuinely curious.

That isn't something Gale has thought about too much. He scrunches his nose up and frowns at the ground, trying to determine how many children he's going to have at some point in the far distant future. For several seconds he thinks it over, holds up his hands and ticks off possibilities.

"I think, two," he finally decides.

"Two," his dad repeats.

"Yeah," Gale nods. "Two. A boy and a girl."

A rumble shakes in his dad's chest. "And what if you don't get one of each on the first tries?"

"Then I guess we'll keep trying 'til we get both," Gale tells him, more than a little annoyed. Isn't that what he and Gale's mother were doing? It doesn't seem so bad to Gale. Just stick the baby in the girl's stomach for it to grow for a while and then get it out. Though how exactly they get it out is still a mystery to Gale. Both the growing and the getting out of the baby had made his mother very tired, he knows that much, but Rory is a bit of a pain. Maybe not all babies are so bad.

"You'd better find a girl that agrees to that," his dad warns. "And for the record, your mother and I aren't just 'trying 'til we get both'. We've always wanted a big family."

While Gale doesn't doubt that his parents had both wanted a big family, he also knows that his dad wants a little girl.

His dad smirks at him, gives Gale a little jiggle, making him laugh.

"So, any girl you've got your eye on?"

Gale rolls his eyes in exasperation. "No, dad."

"Not even that pretty little blonde from the sweet shop?"

That's the stupidest thing Gale's ever heard. Why would he like the stupid girl from the stupid sweet shop? She's from town and she always has white powder on her and he's pretty sure she can't talk. What kind of girl can't talk?

He groans. "No, dad."

His dad chuckles and shakes his head. "You sure? She's got a crush on you, you know? Always giving you a candy when we go by."

Her grandpa gives Gale a candy when he sees him pass by the back of the shop, not the little girl. Gale doesn't even remember her name. Marge or something like that. Not very pretty.

"I'm sure," Gale says.

They stop and his dad puts him down, presses his finger to his lips to warn Gale to be quiet from here on out. For a few minutes he scans the horizon, checking for Peacekeepers, and when he finds none, takes Gale by the hand and rushes with him to the fence.

Once they're safely on the inside of the District, Gale's father takes his hand and they make their way toward Town then they'll be on their way home. Hopefully to a pot of the last of the rabbit from the week before.

One thing is for certain, Gale knows whoever he marries, she'll have to be as good in the kitchen as his mother.

#######

Madge scrunches her nose up as she sits on the floor behind her Poppa's candy display, coloring a picture for her mother, safe from the eyes of the public.

Her father is at the little table in the back, through the pair of swinging doors, talking to Mr. Abernathy about something, she doesn't know what and she doesn't care. It sounds boring. The only reason she's even paid it any attention is because her father promised her he'd take her with him to the Justice Hall later to show her the tiny player piano that had just been placed in the downstairs entry.

"It starts up like magic," he'd told her.

Really, she didn't need to even see the piano, just getting to go with him, spend time with him away from the house and the cranky old housekeeper, is enough for Madge.

She's just about to finish off the big yellow sun in the corner when her Poppa squats down in front of her, holds out a newly hardened chocolate covered strawberry to her. With a grin, she snatches it away and begins eating it, smearing brown and pink from her nose to her chin and across her mouth.

Just as her Poppa has finished chuckling at her, and started to pull a rag from his back pocket to clean her face, the bell over the door to the shop jingles, announcing a customer.

He stands and greets them, leaving Madge as a sticky mess on the floor.

For a minute she stares at the hand with the half eaten strawberry in it, then down at her picture. She sighs.

Carefully, she picks up her paper with her clean hand, struggles to her feet and runs as fast as her short feet will carry her, back through the doors to where her father is.

"Daddy, I'm sticky," she tells him, holding the berry out to him.

His eyebrow arch up as he surveys her mess before he smiles. "Let me get a towel."

Brushing past her, to the tub sink, he snatches up a worn looking rag and begins wetting it.

Something tugs the berry from her hand, and when Madge turns she finds a grinning Mr. Abernathy plucking it from her fingers. He gives her a wink, then pops the last of the messy berry into his mouth, leaving only the stem, which he tosses onto the table.

As she's trying to work out if he's being rude to her or being funny, her father comes up behind her and begins rubbing her face with the damp rag.

"Ow!"

"Hold still, Pearl," her father tells her as he scrubs the last of the chocolate from her cheek. "There."

While Madge is making faces, her father scoops her up and settles himself back into his chair with her in his lap.

"I think that's enough for the day, Haymitch," her father sighs, tapping his hand against his cup of now cold coffee.

Mr. Abernathy nods, puts his flask to his lips and takes a long drink. When he lowers it, his slightly bloodshot eyes settle on Madge, then down to her drawing.

"What've you got there, sweetheart?"

Chewing her lip, Madge shrugs, holds the picture out to him.

It's not very good. She was supposed to have been practicing writing her name, like her father had shown her, but she'd gotten bored. Half the page is covered in half formed versions of 'Madge' and the other half has several sloppy looking yellow tulips and a happy looking sun in the corner.

"Made it for my mom," she tells him. Her mother loved tulips and the sun, but her headaches had kept her from both the past few weeks.

Her father smiles at her, gives her a little squeeze, and sighs.

"Madge has been playing nurse with Matilda," he tells Mr. Abernathy. "She's going to be a good little mother someday."

Mr. Abernathy scowls, shakes his head.

"No." His elbow comes to a rest on the table and he jabs his finger at Madge. "You get yourself set on your own before you start getting all moon-eyed over some stupid guy. Boys are nothing but trouble, understand?"

A warm laugh bursts out of Madge's father's chest, rumbles against her back. "Haymitch, I'm joking. She's still just a baby."

Madge wrinkles her nose up at him. She is not a baby. She doesn't even wet the bed anymore.

Just as she's about to tell her father that, set him straight about what a baby is and is not, the little swinging door flop open and her Poppa comes through, dusting his hands off.

"Oh." He stops, stares at the table. A smile lights up his face. "I was coming to find Madge to clean her up, but I see she already got help with that."

He must notice her soured expression, because he shoots her father and Mr. Abernathy a playfully scolding look.

"What have the two of you done to upset my little Madge?"

Before she can tell him, even get her mouth open to spit the words out, her father starts laughing.

"Haymitch thinks I'm trying to marry her off before she's even in school," he tells Poppa.

That isn't what has her so annoyed, but at least he didn't call her a baby again.

Her Poppa's bushy white eyebrow rise and his eyes twinkle. "Did she tell you about the boy that she gives chocolate to?"

Madge makes a strangled noise at that. It's a lie. "You gibe him chocolate, Poppa!"

His smile widens at her protest and his eyes twinkle. "You watch for him, love."

She does not. She just knows when he passes by.

"My little Pearl already have a beau and didn't tell me?" Her father shakes his head, makes a teasing 'tsk' noise.

"No!" She tells him firmly, crossing her arms and scowling at the table.

Mr. Abernathy gets up, stands and stretches his back, making a loud popping noise as he does. He turns and gives Madge's little tantrum an approving nod.

"Keep that attitude kid. Boys are smelly and dirty and not good for much but causing trouble, trust me. You're too smart for that nonsense."

Why he thinks she's too smart for anything, Madge doesn't know, but she nods quietly at him anyway. Mr. Abernathy gives her father a nod goodbye, tells her Poppa 'see you next week', then vanishes through the front.

Madge's father stands, hoists her up at his side and they tell her Poppa goodbye for the day before leaving through the back and heading toward the Hall.

"Are all boys smelly and dirty and twouble?" She asks him as the Hall comes into view.

Mr. Abernathy certainly seems to be, and he's a boy.

Her father chuckles. "I'm a boy. Am I any of those things?"

She frowns. No, her father is always clean, smells like aftershave, but she supposes he does cause her quiet a lot of trouble, especially on the nights she tries to stay up to see him before bed. She shakes her head, twapping the sides of her face with her ponytail.

"Don't worry about all that, Pearl. Unfortunately, when you get older it won't matter how much trouble a boy is, how dirty or smelly he is, you're still going to like him," he tells her, kissing the tip of her nose.

Her eyes roll. No matter what he says, she's certain it will matter.

#######

Madge pinches her nose closed.

Gale and the kids have just gotten back from fishing. He's filthy, she's pretty sure he found a muddy hole to wallow in before coming home, despite his firm declaration that he most certainly had not. She's also pretty sure he's still got something dead hidden away in his pockets.

"Daddy, can I cut the fishy?" Savanna asks, holding a dead eyed, floppy fish high above her head for Gale to see.

"I think I should handle that for now. You're still a bit young, Vanna," Gale tells her, taking it from her and swiftly making his cuts before pulling the head and guts off and out in one motion.

Savanna and Glen look awestruck and Madge tries not to gag.

These are not my children.

Gale motions for Glen to try it on his little fish. He's older and Gale's been letting him practice for the past year or so.

Just like Gale, Glen makes his little cuts and out come the fish's insides, much to his and Savanna's joy.

"Alright," Madge tells them, before they get too carried away. "I think dad can handle it from here. Why don't you two go take your baths before I have to leave the house."

They groan, painfully upset over not getting to watch Gale disembowel the rest of their catch, but stomp off with their filth trailing in their wake.

Gale carries on, quickly finishing off his work while Madge tries to look anywhere but at it.

"You need to go take a shower too," she tells him as he begins washing his hands, sure to be the only clean part of him, in preparation of getting the meal started.

"I would, but since you can't cook, I have to make sure we don't starve before I go hose off," he teases her back.

She rolls her eyes and huffs. "I can cook just fine."

The market had some lovely packaged meals. All Madge had to do was dump them in a bowl and cook them for the correct amount of time. They're wonderful.

"Mmmhmm," is Gale's only response.

Choosing to ignore his slight on her culinary skills, Madge takes the seat across from him and watches him prepare the fish for cooking.

"I'm glad you and the kids had fun," she tells him. She's also glad she didn't have to go with them. They'd apparently fought their way through a swamp. "You're a good dad, Gale."

She know he didn't think he would be, after all that had happened, but seeing him with Glen and Savanna makes her more sure than ever that Gale was always meant to be a father.

Gale smiles down at the counter. "I like spending time with them. Reminds me of the times I used to spend with my dad in the woods. It's my second favorite thing to do."

That causes Madge's lazy grin to drop. He'd better have one hell of a good 'first thing to do', or she's going to get over her squeamishness and stuff one of those fish heads down his throat.

"And what exactly is first on that list?" She asks, setting him in a narrow look.

He leans across the counter, catches her lips in a quick little kiss. "If you come help me with my hard to reach places in the shower I'll show you."

Should've seen that coming.

Madge feels her face start to blaze, even though there's no reason for it. She begins rubbing at a smudge of dirt he's left on her cheek, laughing.

"Who is going to watch the kids if I'm helping you?"

Gale uses the knife to jab in the direction Glen and Savanna had disappeared to.

"Glen is old enough to keep an eye on Vanna," he tells her. "My brothers and me watched each other when we were younger than him, and let's face it, he's a lot more sensible than any of us were."

"Right," Madge snorts. She shakes her head. "It will still have to be a short bath. I'm not leaving them alone for one of your two hour sauna sessions."

He scowls. "You know, you used to be upset if I didn't take long enough in the shower."

Well, he's certainly making up for that now, she thinks.

"I only take that long when I have help," he says, making the most pathetic face he can manage.

"That seems counterintuitive," she points out.

After an hour Gale's already finished the meal, in record time for him, and Madge wonders if she shouldn't go find the kids.

Then they come, racing from the downstairs and upstairs bathrooms, still moist feet pounding on the wood.

"I won!" Savanna yells as she tries to sidestep Madge and grab Gale.

"Not if you grab him you haven't," Madge tells her. "Unless 'winning' means getting another bath."

"Why don't the two of you go untangle the gear and put it away, just like I showed you. Then pick some tomatoes from the garden. We'll come and get you when dinner is ready."

Glen and Savanna are almost out the door before Gale can add his final bit of direction.

"Glen, keep an eye on your sister."

With an important nod, Glen grabs Savanna's hand and they bolt out the door. Madge frowns a the slamming screen door.

"Gale, dinner is re-"

Before she can finish her thought, he's got her by the hand, dragging her up the stairs.

"I just bought us an hour," he tells her with a grin. "I tangled those fishing lines beautifully."

Madge's mouth drops. "You are trouble, Gale Hawthorne. That's pretty underhanded, doing that to your own children."

"It's character building," he says, stopping to pick her up. She's clearly not getting to the shower quickly enough for him. "That's what my mother always told me and Rory when she had us fold underwear when we were little so she and dad could have some time together."

"I wasn't warned about this deviousness," she laughs as he kicks open the bathroom door and set her down.

"You've known Rory and Vick for how long? You should've clued in, Madge." He starts peeling mud caked layers off. "Besides, I'll help them with it later. More time with them. First, though, I think I need a shower."

Madge nods. He's a very good father, but he really is filthy.


	45. As Time Goes By

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale gingerly touches his still sore nose. It's not broken, or at least the little doctor that Madge had insisted look at it had said it wasn't broken.

"But someone certainly taught you a lesson you won't forget," he'd chuckled.

Madge had kept quiet, eyes focused on the ground, and without so much as a smirk at the old man's strange sort of compliment. Gale had grumbled an 'uh-huh' and quickly left, before the old coot could begin questioning who exactly had 'taught' him this particular lesson.

"Are you sure you don't need more ice?" She asks for what feels like the millionth time as they finally reach her coffee shop.

"Yeah," Gale grunts, dropping onto the bench just outside the large picture window. He reaches up and prods his eye, which is pretty tender despite not having received the brunt of Madge's punch, and sighs.

"I really am sorry," Madge says, perching herself at the end of the bench, just out of his reach.

Gale looks over, to tell her to stop apologizing already, it's mostly just his face and pride that are wounded, but freezes before the words can snap out.

Her hands are in her lap, picking at tiny bits of fuzz on the coarse material of her skirt. It's not a particularly pretty dress, worn and drab, but clean and functional. It's certainly not the kind of dress he would've ever pegged Madge Undersee wearing. He supposes he should've though. She was always weirdly fond of her school uniforms, and they were just as pitiful, just as plain and boring as the dress she was wearing now.

It had never occurred to him then, probably never would've if she hadn't just sprung back from the dead right before his eyes, but Madge had always dressed much less like the daughter of privilege and more like wallpaper. Blending in and fading into the background, which considering who her father is, was, had been a monumental task.

One she'd taken on and conquered quite well, even if Gale hadn't noticed that was her intent.

He was noticing now, though.

Madge, with her dull dress and simple hair, her new and quiet little life, had been trying to vanish into the debris of District Twelve. Even if she denied it, she'd been letting herself be a dead girl.

She wasn't wrong, that there was no one really pining after her. His brothers, who had spent many sleepless nights in Thirteen searching through roles of names in the hopes of finding her, had long since accepted the fact that Madge was part of the ashes of their former District. Gale himself had given her up as a lost cause in half a heartbeat. No one could've survived the bombing and he had too many of the living to focus on.

Yet here she sat. Alive, if a little broken.

What did that matter though? So was Gale.

Scooting over, his hand, rough and calloused, scarred from the mines and setting snares, reaches out and takes hers. It's soft, but he can feel little catches in her skin, proof that she's had to work a little, and that causes a little flare of irritation to shoot through his chest. She's shouldn't have to work. She's the daughter of a Mayor.

Or at least she had been.

The bitter proof that not all the changes that had come from the fall of the Capitol hits him.

Madge hadn't been born for this life, and she hadn't done anything to deserve to be pushed into it. She was the collateral damage that no one had paid much attention to.

Gale remembers other government officials, some just as benevolent as Mayor Undersee, turning up dead in the months after the fall. Killed for no other reason than that they'd been plucked up, chosen because of grades and some perceived skill, and placed in positions of power.

"The only ones that won't get strung up will be the worst of the lot," Heavensbee had said when one of the magistrates from Seven, a woman, her husband, and two children, were all found bound inside their burning house.

They'd been well liked, generous even, but that connection to the Capitol that had tormented the Districts for so long had been the only sin needed to find them guilty and sign their death warrant.

Things have eased off over the past three years, most of the Mayors and magistrates, the lower level stooges, have all been shuffled to new Districts to protect them. Their skills are still needed, most of the rebels aren't exactly politically savvy or equipped to run the new government as it needs, but there are still the occasional flares, attacks on those from the old regime, whether they deserve it or not, that end in bloodshed and tears.

Just like Heavensbee predicted, most of the survivors of the small scale purges that swept through the Districts are scum, parasites that align themselves with whatever bully is the biggest in the schoolyard at the moment, but they're what's left.

Gale wonders, as he runs his thumb over Madge's knuckles, finding a miniscule scar, if there are good officials, ones like Mayor Undersee and whoever else he was friends with, who are hiding in the shadows. Settling with the dust of the Rebellion like Madge, to protect themselves and their families. They might feel entitled to life out of the spotlight after scrutiny they'd lived under.

He'd unfairly placed the blame for his hard life on her shoulders for years, made snide remarks at her expense, without ever really appreciating what kind of mental and emotional anguish growing up in a Capitol owned house could put on a person. After meeting with some of the more sympathetic officials that survived the purges and ended up with the dubious 'honor' of helping to build the new government, Gale knows now just how stressful Madge's life had to have been.

"We never knew when they'd pop in," one woman had told Gale as he'd helped her carry her few remaining belongings up to an apartment in District Three. "Our homes weren't our own."

"Mausoleums," another man, from Eleven originally, had added. "Nothing but houses for the dead."

None of them, the few good officials who had both managed to both make it out and then be caught and dragged back into service by the new government, were particularly happy to be gang pressed back into the lives they were so eager to escape. Some were even downright resentful, but something, Gale supposes an ingrained need to help people, kept them from bolting from the responsibility.

The thought of Madge, who'd only ever seemed quiet and kind, having to exist in a house like that and then having to contend with the often times cruel treatment of the citizens of the District on the outside, makes his stomach churn.

"I probably deserved it," he tells her, forcing a crooked smile onto his face and making his cheek throb a little more.

Madge gives his hand a squeeze and gives him a tight little smile. "Probably."

For a minute he just stares at her, considering the miracle of her sitting just an arm's length from him, able to 'almost' break his nose with one swing of her arm.

She's a piece of home. Not one he ever thought he'd miss or need, but she is. He'd missed her, and he hadn't even known it.

"I'm glad you're alive, Madge," he finally says.

Her cheeks seem to burn a little pinker, though that may just a flush the humidity, and she shrugs. "Sure."

Gale flops back on the bench, stares at the back of her head, glowing golden from the setting sun, and chuckles.

"You know who'll be really happy to hear you're alive?"

Madge turns, nose wrinkled and squinting at him. "Who?"

"Vick," he answers simply. "He and Rory were convinced you were too smart to get killed, especially after you warned all of us."

They'd been right. Gale's pretty sure when he tells them Madge is alive and well they'll never let him live it down, that they were right and he was so very, very wrong.

"I wasn't 'too smart'," Madge tells him sadly. "I just managed to be friends with the right people."

She seems to think that makes her being alive less important, less impressive, but to Gale it isn't.

He's a General, in no small part because of who is friend is, was, and no one seems to think that makes his life, all his accomplishments and failures, any less for it. Why should how Madge survived matter? Whether because of her brains or her connections, alive is alive, and that's all that matters to Gale.

Besides, knowing how to make people like you is a kind of 'smart', and not one Gale is particularly well versed in.

If Madge is alive because of her friends, then he sees that as an infinitely more impressive feat. While he'd never been quite as socially put off as Katniss, Gale's friends were drawn to him because he had confidence and power and was, he'll admit it, more than a little good looking. Even now, people respect him, some are even a little afraid of him, but all of that stems from his skills, his know how, his initiative.

All the people he's ever considered as Madge's friends had been drawn to her, not for what she had or what she could give them, but because of some inherent goodness in her.

A goodness Gale knows he lacks himself, now more than ever.

Gale is alive because he's good at surviving, and Madge is alive simply because she's good.

"I'm glad you did," Gale tells her.

She turns on her seat, gives him a small look. "You really think he'll be happy I'm alive?"

Gale's boom of laughter causes pain to shoot through his face.

"Are you kidding?" He asks, gently touching his nose to see if he's made it bleed again. "He and Rory might wet themselves, they'll be so happy. They got up early, when we were in Thirteen, spent hours trying to find your 'secret identity' on the rosters of survivors."

Her cheeks definitely blossom with a soft pink and she presses the backs of her hands to them.

"They'll want to see you," he adds, hoping she can sense how important having her back, another survivor, a sign of hope, is going to be to his family.

He'd cost them Katniss and Prim, hadn't been able to save them from himself, and giving Madge back to them won't change that, but it will make him feel less like a failure. He hadn't saved her, but unlike Prim and Katniss, Madge hadn't needed saving, she'd saved herself.

For a second she's quiet, starts picking at her skirt again.

"They'll come down here?" Her eyes focus on her fingertips. "They'll come all this way to see me?"

"Of course." Hearing about her won't be enough, talking to her on that stupid phone won't be enough. "When I come back-"

"You're coming back?" Her nose wrinkles and her head tilts.

They stare at each other for a minute, and it hits Gale that she doesn't think he'd be coming back for her. They hadn't been friends in Twelve, more survivors bound by a tragedy, and she probably doesn't realize how much he needs her. His mind had started formulating all the ways he could detour through Ten, through her little town, during his travels when she'd dragged him from the coffee shop and down to the doctor.

He doesn't know how to tell her that, though, and he doesn't want to scare her. She's still too easily spooked, and he doesn't want to lose her.

Instead of telling her all that, breaking down on her shoulder and pouring his heart out-that he needs her, someone who knows just how bad he can be-Gale gives her a sharp nod. "Yeah, I mean, I can't let my mother come down here all by herself. What if you get violent again?"

Madge snorts. "I would never hit your family."

Gale arches his eyebrows. "You won't make an exception for Rory? It might do him some good to get his nose busted."

She shakes her head. "I feel bad enough having hit you, and you admit you might deserve it. I couldn't live with myself if I hit one of your brothers."

"It's just Rory, he probably deserves it too." Scratch that. Rory definitely deserves it, for any number of things. "Just give him a black eye."

Madge frowns, is quiet for a minute while she picks at her nails. "They won't hate me? For…you know?"

"Hiding?" Gale offers.

She nods.

He had. He'd been furious with her for letting him and everyone else think she was dead, but that was only a fleeting feeling, quickly replaced by relief. She'd been protecting herself, something he can sympathize with. Gale can't fault her for self-preservation.

She's alive and no matter how long it had taken her to turn up again, that's all that matters.

"They'll forgive you," he tells her, taking her hand in his again, enjoying the heat and weight and life in it.

When she smiles, Gale can't help but smile back, despite the pain it causes in his face.

He'd definitely learned a painful lesson, getting his nose nearly broken by her. Madge Undersee, no matter how she dressed or how quiet she is, isn't a person he should've ever forgotten.

And he doesn't plan on making that mistake ever again.


	46. It is a foreign world, pt 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine
> 
> AN: Thanks to FortuneFaded2012 for the beta.

Madge takes her time walking to the row where Peeta had told her Mr. Abernathy is, examining the little shops that have cropped up in the new District Twelve, until she comes to the turn.

It's a familiar corner, the same one she went down after school when she was small to get to her Poppa's sweet shop. Despite setting in the same spot, it's very different. The paint on the storefronts are fresher, no chips or cracks visible. None of the few names on the windows are faded away or peeling off.

The place is the same, but at the same time, completely different.

She peers down the somewhat narrow lane, sees a slumped figure on a bench, snoring peacefully with his head propped back against the wall behind him.

Madge takes a few hesitant steps, gathers her courage, then lets her feet carry her the rest of the way down to where he sleeps.

She doesn't say anything, just studies him for a few seconds.

He's grayer than he had been which isn't surprising. Gale's had flecks of silver creeping into his dark hair for years now. He'd been a bit self-conscious about it, but Madge had assured him it didn't make him look old.

"It gives you a bit of distinction," she'd told him.

"Does that mean 'ancient'?" He'd grumbled, taking a pair of tweezers and trying to pick an errant hair from the middle of his head. "My mother doesn't even have this much gray, and she raised three boys."

Taking the tweezers, they needed to be hidden, Madge had kissed the tip of his nose. "It means 'handsome'. Stop pulling your hair out. At least you have some to go gray."

That had shut him up, though she still occasionally caught him running his hands over his increasingly peppery hair and grimacing.

Katniss and Peeta both had strands of gray weaving through their hair as well, another souvenir of their hard lives. Mr. Abernathy, though, has far more than any of them. He's had more hardships for far longer than them, so Madge supposes he's entitled to it.

The wrinkles on his face are relaxed, but still easily seen. His color is more sallow, his drinking is catching up with him. It was bound to at some point. Otherwise, he seems much as Madge remembers him from her childhood.

Gruff, but approachable.

Dropping onto the bench beside him, she almost laughs when he jerks awake, and makes a startled, strangled noise.

She expects him to pull his knife on her, and he does start digging at his belt to find it, but someone, Madge suspects Peeta, has taken it. A wise move.

His wild hands still after a second when he finally opens his eyes all the way and sees the person seated beside him.

He blinks, his yellowing eyes bleary in the morning sun, then squints at her, completely confused by what his eyes are showing him.

"'Tilda?"

Madge's heart stops for a beat for him, at the hopeful gleam in his groggy eyes. She gives him a sad smile. "No, Mr. Abernathy."

For a minute he stares, his drink laced mind slowly catching up with what he's seeing. He reaches out pokes her in the cheek.

"Really are here then?" He mutters, more to himself than to her, then sighs, closes his eyes in exasperation. "What the hell are you doing here, Pearl?"

Madge's eyebrows arch up. "Good to see you too, Mr. Abernathy."

His bloodshot eyes open, shoot her a glare. He holds the look for a minute, almost convincing her he's mad before his mouth twitches up, forms into a smile.

Before she knows what's happening, just like with Peeta, he's lunged forward, pulled her into a tight hug.

Unlike Peeta, Mr. Abernathy doesn't smell like vanilla. He also doesn't smell like liquor or cigar smoke, which surprises her. Those are two of his favorite things. Instead, the first thing she smells is the all too familiar, earthy scent of tomato plants, and she instantly wonders if he's taken up gardening. It's a funny image, Mr. Abernathy out in a garden, struggling with tomato cages and cursing at the birds that peck holes in his food.

Under that is the unmistakable fragrance of lilac. Madge remembers her mother always keeping them on her bedside table when they were in season and she wonders if he keeps them around his house too.

Slowly, Madge wraps her arms around him, squeezes him to her and closes her eyes.

She hadn't realized how much she missed him.

It's not having her parents back, but he's a piece of her past, something tangible, and that's more than she's had in a very long time.

Gale hadn't known her, no one had really, back in Twelve. There had been people like Peeta and Delly, that she'd known since childhood, who were friendly with her and probably considered her a friend, but they didn't know her quite as well as they thought. She'd kept herself closed off as much as everyone had closed her off. Katniss was as near to a real friend as she'd had, and that was only due to their equally solitary lives.

Mr. Abernathy had known her. He'd been more fond of her than most, looked out for her, listened to her stupid problems, didn't tell her that she needed to toughen up because there were people out there with a much worse time of it than her. He was more a friend to her than most people her own age, as pathetic as that was and is, but that doesn't matter anymore. Things are different, what 'was' is in the past.

"I've missed you," she tells him, voice barely above a whisper and a little wet sounding.

"Missed you too, kid."

He holds her for a few minutes, tight in his warm hug, and Madge feels him run his hands over her hair before he pulls back.

His eyes are shining, but he doesn't let the tears fall, just blinks them back. He stares, studies her just as he had the last time he'd seen her, on the back porch of her house, the night before the last Reaping, memorizing all the features of her face as if it might be the last chance he gets.

"Look just like your mother," he finally says, giving her a pat on the cheek and dropping his hands from her face.

Madge looks away while he rubs his hands over his face, mutters something about 'crap in the air'.

When he's finished wiping his face he looks back at her, eyes still a little moist. "You shouldn't've come," he sighs and a little smile forms on his lips, "but I'm glad you did."

Madge nods, rubs her own eyes, cursing herself when her hands come away wet.

Mr. Abernathy reaches up and wipes her cheek with his thick fingers. "Don't cry, Pearl."

She doesn't mean to, but she can't stop them once they start.

Leaning forward, she wraps her arms around Mr. Abernathy and sobs on his shoulder. It's as close to home as she's felt in years.

"I'm sorry," she tells him. She doesn't mean to fall to pieces on him, it's silly and stupid and she hates herself a little bit for being so weak around him. He's had such strong people surrounding him for so long, he must think she's ridiculous. She feelsridiculous.

"Don't be sorry," he shushes her, rubbing gentle circles on her back. "I'm the one should be sorry."

That makes Madge pull back in confusion, swat at her eyes. "No-"

"Yes," he tells her firmly. "I got my family killed, then I didn't think this through. I got Danny and…your mom killed. Thought I'd got you killed too, sweetheart."

"You didn't kill anyone," she tells him, trying to keep the quiver from her voice. "The Capitol, President Snow, that's who killed all of them. Not you."

Madge pulls back and forces a watery smile for him. "And I'm not dead."

In no small part because of him,in a hundred ways and more.

His last act of kindness to her had been sending Birdy. Madge doubts the little Victor would've worked half as hard for someone else. He'd convinced her somehow that what they were doing was the best option, taking the chance with Katniss and Peeta for their incomplete plan to save the country. From what Madge had learned in Ten about the Victor she wasn't easily swayed. Mr. Abernathy must've been quite persuasive.

"Because you're smart," he tells her. "Smartest girl I ever met."

"I am smart," she tells him as she takes his hand, gives it a squeeze. "I'm smart enough to know you never meant for any of this to happen. Not the way it did."

His eyes shine, reflect the rising sun back at Madge. "I did the best I could. It was just all so…complicated."

Complicated is such a simple word for something so much more than that. He and her parents had made so many sacrifices, not just for the District, but for her. She can't repay them, any of them, for sacrificing happiness and possibilities for her, so that she could grow up without fear or being ripped from their lives.

Madge tries to blink away her tears, but only succeeds in sending them cascading down her cheeks. Annoyed with herself, she begins digging in her pockets for a tissue.

Mr. Abernathy catches her hand and puts something soft and painfully white in her palm.

"It's clean," he assures her with a small smile.

Giving him a watery smile of her own, Madge dabs her cheeks before trying to hand it back. He shakes his head.

"Keep it, least I can do."

That only makes more tears spring to Madge's eyes. She takes a shuddering breath and shakes her head. "You did so much for me. Don't you ever think you didn't."

He'd saved her. Before she'd even entered the world and after, even if he'd had to do it from a distance. He'd been her first friend, the person that knew her the best. He'd kept her from complete isolation, made her feel worthwhile, protected her from her own thoughts, and in the end, a fiery death.

There were so many things he'd done for her. There were so many things he'd sacrificed for her, things she can't even imagine doing, let alone surviving. He's so much stronger than she'd ever imagined, and she hopes that if she ever needs it, she can be just as strong. She can't get her voice to work though, to ask him about all the things that have blossomed in her mind over the years since the destruction of Twelve.

For several long moments he just stares at her. Finally, a smile cracks his face.

"You sound like your mother. She could be forceful if she wanted to be."

Madge starts to snort, the idea of her mother being anything but a shrinking violet is comical, but then she remembers her mother telling Mrs. Oberst to leave Madge be after she'd run into the house, a muddy mess after delivering morphling to a badly beaten Gale, and sitting on the couch, sipping tea after poisoning Thread. There were things about her mother she didn't know, things she may never know.

One of the thousand questions she'd had since she'd arrived in Ten all those years ago, a question that had died on her tongue the night of the last Reaping.

"Did you love her?" Madge finally asks, her voice just barely carrying on the wind.

For a minute she doesn't think he's going to answer her, or maybe that he just hadn't heard her. He just turns his face out to the little store front lined up in front of them.

"That's where your granddad's shop used to be," he finally says, pointing, unnecessarily at the vacant store across from them.

Madge almost huffs, he's avoiding answering her and it annoys her. She'd had to work up the courage for that question for years now.

He sighs. "Sometimes I wake up from a nap and expect the lights to be on, for her to bring me a tin of fudge and some tea."

Just like always, he's not answering her but he is. In his own strange way.

The air is getting warmer as the sun rises and Madge feels a bead of perspiration forming on her forehead. She wonders how long Mr. Abernathy plans on staying out and staring at the empty store, how many days he's wasted doing just that.

Carefully, Madge takes his hand in hers and holds it. She can't think of anything more comforting to do in the moment.

"If she were here," Madge finally says, "I think she'd be doing just that."

Her mother hadn't been meant for life as a politician's wife. She'd been happiest when Madge was very small, when her father had been alive and the three of them had been able to sit and make candy all day. Her headaches were best on those days, her crying fits less frequent, her mood better. Madge has no doubt that her mother would've been better off living that life than the one where she existed in a morphling stupor, fighting off demons in her head with so little success.

If there is a place beyond the world they live in, Madge hopes her mother and Mr. Abernathy get their happy ending. They deserve it.

His hand tightens around hers and he lets out a sigh, his eyes finally coming back to her. He's building himself up to something, and Madge has an inkling as to what it is by the way he chews his lip.

"Your dad-"

"Loved me," Madge cuts him off and battles back more tears. "My dad loved me more than his own life. He died so I'd have a chance to get out past the fences."

A smile forms on her lips as she remembers the riders from Ten jumping from their saddles and cutting a small opening in the western fence for the group to flee through. They'd shouted thanks at the sky for the dead Mayor of District Twelve, for her father.

They were, still are, the only people that know her father, the soft spoken little Mayor of the mining District, had kept it from complete destruction.

No matter what facts changed in the world, who was in charge of the country, where Madge lived and what she did, there was one unvarying fact: her father had loved her.

Her mother had loved her.

Mr. Abernathy still loves her, and he always had.

Even if he's annoyed with her for coming back to Twelve.

"He did," Mr. Abernathy agrees. "He loved you more than anyone I think. Did more for you than you'll ever know."

Madge doubts that. She'd spent most of her free time, what little of it there had been, finding out all there was to know about her father's side of the family. Which wasn't much, but enough to let her know that she is happy to be known as the daughter of Daniel Undersee.

"My mother killed Thread," she tells him suddenly, tightening her grip on his arm. It's the first time she's talked about what happened that night, the night Twelve was destroyed "She poisoned him for threatening me and he shot her."

Her mother had been so brave, in her own way, just like her father. No one but Madge and Katy-Jo Lewes would ever know that though. No one but Madge would really care.

Mr. Abernathy needed to know though, he cared.

His head tilts, cheek coming to a rest against Madge's hair. She hears him sniffle.

"She was quite a lady."

Madge nods. "She really was."

And just like her father, Madge hadn't appreciated how much her mother had loved her, had done for her, until it was too late.

Hot tears start to slip out the corners of her eyes again, splattering down on her lap and Mr. Abernathy's sleeve. He doesn't seem to mind though, just murmurs comforting nonsense into her hair.

All the things she's been holding in spill out in a snot filled blubbering mess. Her father dying to take down the fence, her mother slowly bleeding to death in her favorite chair with Mrs. Oberst and her granddaughter by her side, the horrible heat, how she'd almost given up after seeing her house incinerated by the Capitol's bombs…

Despite the increasing franticness of her tale, the breaks in her voice and the disgusting snot she keeps having to rub off her face with his handkerchief, Mr. Abernathy holds her and keeps telling her to talk. Right up until her tongue can't form words anymore.

After she's finished, cried herself dry, he wraps his arm around her and hums her a song. It's familiar, she thinks she remembers it as one her mother used to listen to, but she can't remember. Just one more of her quickly fading memories of her life.

"Thank you," she finally manages. "For…"

Her words turn to dust in her throat, just as they always seem to do.

She needs to thank him for letting her live, for being brave for her sake; she doesn't want to fail to appreciate him like she had with her mother and father. The words won't come though. Saying them makes the meeting feel too final, the last of her unfinished business from her old life, and she can't get herself to untangle it from her soul.

He doesn't prompt her, just runs his hand over her hair, smoothing out a few knots from the wind.

Her wet eyes turn up to him, search his yellowing ones, trying to get the words to dislodge from her throat for him.

It takes him a second, but he seems to sense what she wants to say. A small smile forms on his parched lips and his eyes shine a little more than they had. He understands, even if she can't say what she so desperately wants to.

In an instant he lurches forward and presses a scratchy kiss to her forehead, just as he always had when she'd been a child. A little sigh ghosts through her hair. "I know, Pearl."

Despite thinking she'd cried dry, more tears come pouring out for her family and all they'd lost, all the lives they could've lived but didn't, and couldn't, because of the Capitol.

They sit on the bench for what feels like several hours. Mr. Abernathy wraps his arm around her shoulder and Madge rests her head against his chest, pretending she's very small again and waiting on her father to get off work or for her Poppa to come out looking for her playing with her little ball in the street.

It isn't until she hears her name, someone calling for her from down at the end of the block, that she realizes the sun has reached the crest of the sky.

Sitting up from her slumped position next to Mr. Abernathy, she blinks around blearily.

Coming down from the Square is Gale, a puzzled expression on his face.

"What's the cousin doing here?" Mr. Abernathy asks the moment his eyes spot Gale.

"Please stop calling him that," Madge groans as she sits up the rest of the way and pops a crick that has formed in her neck.

Jogging a bit, Gale comes to a stop a few steps away from them, eyes fixing on Mr. Abernathy. Neither man says anything, just glares at the other until Madge coughs.

"Everything okay?" Gale finally asks.

"What's it to you?" Mr. Abernathy snaps back. He cuts his eyes to Madge. "Please tell me you didn't come with this nitwit."

Gale makes a low noise, something like a growl, before focusing his glare on Madge. "What are you doing with him? I was worried."

Before Madge can answer, apologize for making him worry over her, she'd been gone far longer than she intended, Mr. Abernathy cuts in again.

"She's talking with me, not that that's any of your business." He waves his hands at Gale, gesturing for him to go away. "Go darken someone else's bench, boy."

With no acknowledgement, Gale keeps his gaze on Madge, awaiting her answer.

Taking Mr. Abernathy's hand, Madge gives him a small smile, asking him to behave, just this once, for her. His mouth, ready with what she's sure is another insult, snaps shut and he huffs, but doesn't say anything else.

Madge turns back to Gale.

"I'm sorry," she starts. "Time just got away from me."

He relaxes a little, lets out a long sigh and eyes Mr. Abernathy with all the dislike he has in his being.

"Mr. Abernathy and I were reminiscing," she adds, explaining the presence of the man Gale clearly holds no love for.

Getting up, Madge turns to Mr. Abernathy. "Give us a minute."

He starts to protest, but halts when she gives him a reassuring grin.

"Fine," he grumbles.

Grabbing Gale's hand, Madge pulls him with her, to a little nook between the buildings and out of Mr. Abernathy's earshot.

The instant they're out of Mr. Abernathy's line of sight, Gale pulls Madge into a tight hug, pressing a kiss to her neck and breathing in her hair. "You scared me." He pulls back and gives her a stern glare. "Gave me a few more gray hairs."

Madge tries not to laugh at that, but a little snort still escapes.

"I'm sorry, Gale," she tells him when his expression goes even more soured. "I just-Mr. Abernathy is important to me. He's known me since I was a baby. He's known me my whole life. Out of all the people in the District, not counting my parents, he's the only person I always knew cared about me and what happened to me, loved me."

Gale's expression softens, his eyes fall, settle on some point on the ground past Madge's shoulder.

She's instantly aware she's upset him. He knows he was less than kind to her when they'd been in Twelve, bordering on cruel, but she tries not to bring it up. The past is in the past and drudging it up doesn't do anyone any good.

His hands come up, cup her face before he lets his forehead come to rest against hers.

"I know," he finally sighs, his cool, minty breath grazing over her nose. "I'm sorry. I just had, you know, bad dreams, and then you didn't come back-I thought…"

Madge cuts him off with her lips, pressing a kiss quickly to his lips to silence him.

"I'm not going anywhere, Gale," she tells him when she breaks away, a little breathless. She sniffles, fighting off more silly tears, and runs her hands through his hair. "There's so much I need to tell you though, really hard things. I need-I want to tell you, I can tell you now."

She couldn't before, and she hadn't been sure why.

Now she knows.

Gale would care that she was upset, he would hold her and sooth her, run his fingers through her hair while she cried about all horrible things that had happened the night of the bombing, but Gale wouldn't understand. Not like Mr. Abernathy had.

Gale hadn't known her parents. He hadn't cared about Madge then, even if he did now. Telling him about that night wouldn't have been the same as telling Mr. Abernathy, he had a connection to the people in her story, her mother and father, to her.

She'd needed to start by telling Mr. Abernathy because he was a tether to her past, the last tie to her childhood, the only person that could truly miss her parents with her.

Mouth turning down, Gale makes an agitated noise. "It had to be Haymitch, didn't it?"

Madge nods and takes his hand.

Mr. Abernathy has gotten up from the bench when they emerge from the crevice, his eyes still trained on Gale. He makes a huffing noise.

"Didn't I warn you he's no good for you, Pearl?"

With a nod, Madge gives Gale's hand a squeeze.

"Yeah," she takes a breath. "Things have changed. Gale's changed."

With a skeptical snort, Mr. Abernathy gives Gale a dark look. "You hurt her and I'll skin you and use your scrotum as a coin purse, understand boy?"

Gale's hand tightens around Madge's, but he doesn't respond to the goading, just gives a short nod of acknowledgement.

They hold each other's glare for a few seconds longer before Gale cuts his eyes over to Madge. "We need to go. Our train will be leaving soon."

Out the corner of her eye, Madge sees Mr. Abernathy's expression shift, fall into disappointment and her heart falls for him.

Dropping Gale's hand, Madge throws her arms around Mr. Abernathy's neck, letting a few last tears escape her eyes. "Thank you for always looking out for me."

She falls back on her heels. "Write me back, okay? Maybe you can come visit me."

Despite Gale's small groan, or maybe because of it, Mr. Abernathy smiles and gives her a wink. "I'll consider it."

Throwing her arms around his neck again, Madge presses a kiss to his scratchy cheek.

"I love you."

His arms tighten around her, as if trying to meld her to him. Madge feels her shoulder growing damp.

"I love you too, kiddo."

With one last squeeze, he lets her go, begins rubbing his eyes and grumbling about 'allergies' again.

Madge takes his hand and gives it a squeeze. "See you later."

His mouth twitches up. "Yeah."

It may not be true, but Madge can't bear another goodbye, and there's no guarantee that she won't see him again. She hopes she does.

Stealthily, Gale slips his hand into hers and tugs her down the cobbled road. Away from her past, which is so familiar but different, and into the future with him.

Their future.


	47. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

"Are we there yet?" Vick asks for what is, by Gale's count, the three hundredth time.

"Not much longer," Gale's mother answers before Gale has to answer that, no, in the past minute and a half, they have not arrived at their destination. He's beginning to wonder if this whole expedition is worth the trouble. His growing headache certainly makes him think not.

With a sigh, Gale leans against the window of the train and watches the flat grassland speed by and listens to Posy comment on the various livestock that occasionally appears on the horizon.

They're finally going to Ten to see Madge. It's taken Gale several months to convince her to let them, though honestly, he'd have rather taken her to Two. Gathering up one person is much easier than four, especially when two of those persons are teenage boys going to see a former crush.

Gale is certain Rory alone packed more clothing than his mother and Posy combined.

Madge is hesitant to leave her new home though, getting her to visit Four with him had been a miracle and ended up being a turning point in their new and tentative relationship. After that step he'd thought she would happily go to Two and see his family, all of whom called her on a weekly basis, but something about traveling to see them and not just traveling for work that made her hesitant. Gale didn't understand it, but he didn't want to push her, she's still skittish sometimes.

When he'd first found her and mentioned how excited his brothers would be, she'd been nervous that they'd be angry with her and wouldn't make the journey to see her, which is ridiculous. Even if Gale hadn't seen that Madge wasn't the enemy back in Twelve, his family had. He'd barely gotten the words out, 'I found Madge', when his brothers erupted in yells.

"We told you she was too smart!" Rory shouted, a blazing smile on his face that told Gale he was going to be hearing about his lack of faith for years to come.

"I knew she was alive," Vick added, his eyes wide with wonder that his inkling had been right.

Posy barely remembered Twelve, let alone Madge, but she did have a vague recollection of the first time she'd gotten new dresses. That was enough to make her excited the now blurred and shapeless blonde from that memory had made it through the Rebellion.

His mother had simply sat down at the worn looking kitchen table and pressed her fingers to her eyes. "That poor girl. She's all alone now, isn't she?"

"Yeah," Gale had told her. Madge hadn't given him many details about what happened to her parents or how she'd survived, other than that some 'Riders from Ten' had saved her. He didn't press it. If anyone was aware of the need to tell things on their own time, it was Gale.

"When do we get to see her?" Vick had asked, that night, and every night he spoke to Gale after.

"When she's ready," was Gale's stock answer.

It had taken him most of the summer to get her to agree to let them come down. She'd always had an excuse.

There was a cattle drive in town, she'd be too busy, she had a birthday party to attend, and, least convincingly, she had to help process and package meat for some of the goat ranchers.

"You aren't going to touch meat, Madge," Gale had countered, crossing his arms and fixing her in a steady look.

"Well…" She sighed, flushing pink and not meeting his eyes. "I just don't want to disappoint them. Every time I talk to them on the phone they're so excited and…what if they get down here and see that I'm still just me? I'm not special. I haven't gotten any tougher or-"

"You have," Gale cut her off, wincing slightly. The Madge he'd known back in District Twelve wouldn't have punched him. She'd survived the bombing and District Ten, which is Gale's least favorite district, and if that wasn't a sign she was tougher he didn't know what was.

"But they don't care if you're just 'you'. Just you is who they want to see."

That had quieted her, though Gale is certain it will take actually seeing his overjoyed family and having them hug her breathless to actually convince her it's the truth. They don't care if she has or hasn't changed. They'd liked her as she'd been and the minor differences would only increase their fondness of her.

"Do we hafta ride horses?" Posy asks as they pass by several men on horseback.

Gale shakes his head and Posy looks relived, though she's probably less so than Gale. He'd fallen off one of the stupid things the one and only time he'd tried to ride one, and received a round of applause for his failure. He has no intention of ever attempting travel by horseback ever again.

The drab scenery, dry grass and scattered tufts of taller sprigs, begin to slow outside the window and Gale squints to see the outskirts of Madge's town.

It's as faded as everything else in the District. Buildings with peeling paint and patched roofs alongside penned animals stretch out for several miles along cracking roads which turn into riveted dirt ones at the edge of town. Madge likes it though, so Gale keeps his dislike somewhat covered.

"Is that it?" Rory asks, nose pressed to the glass. He drops back into his seat. "Not much to look at is it?"

Gale snorts. "Wait 'til you get in it."

It's like something out of the midnight matinees his mother and Posy are so fond of. Murky looking films from before Panem with cowboy hats and boots.

Vick, unlike Rory, doesn't look disappointed, just continues to squint out the window.

"She's going to be at the station, right?" He asks, eyes still on the window.

"Yeah," Gale assures him.

"What's she wearing?" Posy asks.

Gale groans. "I don't know, Pose. I haven't seen her yet."

"She didn't tell you?" Posy flops down beside their mother. "What if we don't recognize her? In the story on the television the girl told the guy what she would be wearing so he could find her."

"Posy," Vick rolls his eyes and finally turns back from the window, "we already know what she looks like. We know her."

"I don't," Posy grumbles. "I just remember she's blonde."

"Don't worry, Posy," their mother pats Posy's hair down. "I'm sure the boys' memory is going to be more than enough to help us pick her out."

She gives Gale a little smile and he crosses his arms over his chest and turns his face back to the window. He doesn't need more of her insinuations, especially not in front of Vick and Rory, they're unbearable enough without her prodding.

It takes a few more minutes before the train slows to a stop, gently jerking them all forward then back.

"We're here," Gale tells Vick pointedly.

Both Vick and Rory tussle around as they try to get their overstuffed suitcases from the overhead compartment. In the end they drop their mother's on Posy and cause her to burst into tears. Gale shoots them a filthy look as he hoists their sister up and carries her in an attempt to calm her.

When they finally get off the train, into the blinding light and thickly hot air, Gale is ready to strangle both his brothers. They'd managed to trip an old lady and knocked a man into the wall of the narrow hall down the train.

"Boys," their mother had snapped at them after apologizing to the woman and helping her pick up her purse. "Madge isn't going anywhere, but you might be headed back to Two if you don't get yourselves together."

That had calmed them, though Vick still pressed a little too closely to the girl in front of them as they waited to get to the exit and received a dark look from her father.

"Ugh!" Rory pulled at the collar of his shirt. "It's stuffy out here."

Gale almost teases Rory about not being able to handle the heat, but since he isn't too fond of the sultry weather that settles over Ten in the summer, he decides not to say anything.

Vick doesn't seem bothered by the heat, even the added part radiating from the resting train, as he bobs up and down on his toes to give himself a few inches of added height to look over the crowd.

"I don't see her," Vick tells him sharply. "I thought she might be over-"

"Vick?" Madge's soft voice reaches them over the dull buzz of humanity around them.

Gale turns and finds her, dressed in something he's sure she borrowed from her roommate. It's blue and simple, but nicer than anything he's seen her in since finding her. Her hair is pulled back, up and off her neck, probably to save her from having a heat stroke and her skin is a shade darker than the last time he'd seen her, though still much paler than Gale's.

Her eyes scan the group and she squints into the bright daylight. "Rory?"

Before Gale can say so much as a hello, Vick has scooped her up, pulled her into a tight hug and is twirling her around, her legs dangling uselessly as they spin. When he finally sets her down Rory throws his arms around her waist and hoists her into a crushing hug, making her laugh.

"How did you see us?" Vick asks her, once Rory puts her back on the ground.

Madge's eyebrows rise and a small smile forms on her lips. "You're a bit hard to miss."

She gestures to the crowd. Gale, Rory, and Vick are all at least a head taller than almost everyone, it would've been more difficult for Madge not to find them.

Vick shrugs and pulls her into another hug. "I can't believe you're really here."

A little chuckle bubbles from where Vick has her trapped. "I can't believe you're so tall." She pulls back and looks between Vick and Rory. "Almost taller than Gale."

"Almost," Gale emphasizes. He doesn't want them getting any ideas.

When her attention settles on Gale it also finds Posy. Madge's mouth forms a small 'o'.

"She's gotten so big."

Posy smiles shyly and ducks into Gale's shoulder.

"She's pretty," she whispers in his ear. Gale just chuckles.

"Madge," Gale hears his mother say. He looks over and sees her smiling, probably remembering how Madge had given them hope, brightened Vick, and occasionally Rory's afternoons, when they'd lived in Twelve.

"Hello, Mrs. Hawthorne. Did you have a good trip?"

Gale's mother takes a few steps forward, reaches out and pulls Madge into a much less dramatic hug than her sons. She must say something to her, because Madge looks at Gale and smiles before whispering something back. Gale tries to read her lips and thinks she says 'me too'.

His mother lets her go and Madge swats at her eyes, brushing away a few tears Gale pretends not to see.

"I guess I should show you all where the hotel is so you can drop your bags off," she finally says, looking away to compose herself.

"It has air conditioning doesn't it?" Rory asks, wiping the increasing perspiration from his forehead and his expression anxious.

Madge laughs as she begins leading them from the station. "Not enjoying our mild end of summer?"

"Mild?" Rory's mouth turns down. One of his eyebrows rises. Gale smirks at him as he brushes past, but stops when he hears Rory muttering under his breath. "Maybe you should give her your doctor's name, 'cause if she thinks this is 'mild'…"

Gale shifts Posy in his arms and smacks the back of Rory's head.

Rubbing his head, Rory grumbles to himself as he trails after the group.

Posy finally gets confident enough to get down, grabs their mother's hand and listens intently as Madge points out different buildings to them.

When they finally reach the hotel, the same one Gale stays at during his visits, Vick and Rory race up the stairs to the rooms, Posy scrambling after them and their mother following after in exasperation.

Madge watches, trying and failing to hid her laughter, and Gale knocks her in the shoulder with his, smirks down at her. "What?"

She grins up at the stairs. "I just can't believe how big they've all gotten. The boys are both so tall."

"Not taller than me though," Gale adds again.

"And they never will be, right?" Madge asks.

Gale nods. "Never."

Especially not Rory if he continues to be a pain in the backside.

With a sigh, Gale decides he should probably go up to the rooms and make sure Rory and Vick don't destroy the one he's supposed to share with them. They'll have every inch taken over if he doesn't place some claim on at least the couch.

Taking Madge's hand, Gale tugs her toward the stairs.

"Come on," he tells her. "I need to go make sure I have a place to sleep tonight."

Her eyebrows arch up. "And you need me why exactly?"

He starts to tell her that they came there to see her and he intends to spend every waking moment doing just that and that she's the only decent thing in her hellhole of a district, but thinks that might make her uncomfortable so he keeps it to himself.

She doesn't resist as he continues to pull her up the steps toward where his family had disappeared.

Gale glances back at her over his shoulder, giving her a small smirk.

"I need you to distract them," he tells her simple, earning himself one of her bright little laughs.

It might've been headache inducing, traveling with his obnoxious brothers all the way down to Ten to see her, but having her cool little hand wrapped in his, and having the possibility of blindsiding his brothers into letting him get the bed by the window by having her presence divert their attention, might make it a little worth all the trouble.


	48. Baby Steps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Madge wrings her hands, takes a few more anxious steps, and accidently steps in a small puddle. The water seeps into her shoes and soaks her socks, but she's too preoccupied to pay it much attention.

She's outside the building Gale works in, an old office made of smooth limestone with what seems to be hundreds of glistening black windows. Gale's desk is next to a window, at the far back corner, overlooking the edge of their town and the mountains in the distance. Madge thinks the view is the only thing that keeps him from demanding to be given more fieldwork, without it she imagines he'd feel trapped, suffocated in the chilly office and his rolling chair.

Normally she doesn't come to see him. He's asked her not to, actually, something about the other men at the office watching her making him uncomfortable.

"They're a bunch of pigs," he'd told her sourly before they'd gotten married.

This is a special occasion, though, and she wants to tell him her news as soon as possible.

For the past few months, as the frigid winter thawed into a soggy spring, she's suspected she is pregnant.

There hasn't been any nausea, no strange cravings, or emotional upheavals, just overwhelming tiredness and an odd feeling. She's kept her thoughts to herself. There was no reason to worry him if she wasn't certain.

Her hand runs over her damp hair and she sighs. As much as she'd like to think Gale will be happy they're going to have a baby, he'd agreed to it after all, she knows, more than anything, he'll be terrified.

"I don't deserve all this happiness. I have you, my family, a future, and I don't deserve any of it. What if you get pregnant and something happens?"

Gale's gotten it in his head he's forfeited his right to happiness, that all good things that come his way are conditional in some way, one good thing exchanged for another. He'll see Madge being pregnant for nothing more than all the potential to lose not just her, but the life they've created. She has to prepare herself for the onslaught of his over protectiveness that's bound to come.

That's partly why she's waited so long to visit the doctor. She wanted to be a good way into the pregnancy, past what she felt were the most dangerous first stages before she told him. If she lost it then the tragedy would be her own, not Gale's. He was anxious enough about this whole adventure and she didn't want to give him more reason to worry.

"You're a good fourteen weeks along based off your last period," the little redhead, Dr. Brahman, had told her. "We'll do an ultrasound when you come back and get some measurements to be certain though."

After finding out her suspicions were right, that it was something good and not horrible going on with her body, Madge hadn't been able to stop smiling. She was going to be a mother, a possibility she'd never even entertained when she'd been younger. There was another living being slowly growing inside her.

The moment she'd stepped on the bus to go to Gale, though, all her happiness had evaporated out of her.

What if Gale wasn't able to work through his worries and enjoy the little milestones of this next step in their relationship? What if he changed his mind and didn't want a baby after all?

It had started raining again after that. The pale gray clouds had begun leaking warm spring rain down from the sky and splattering on the flat windows of the bus as Madge watched the people outside barely pay the renewed shower any concern.

By the time she'd reached Gale's work the rain had stopped, but the clouds remained, threatening to open up again with each little rumble of thunder.

Now, outside his office, Madge thinks maybe she should wait until he gets home to give him the news. If he takes it badly she'd rather it be in the privacy of their home and not in front of his coworkers.

Just as she turns to leave, head back to the bus stop and make her way home to wait out the few hours until Gale gets home, she hears her name.

"Madge?"

Gale is standing at the top of a small set of stairs jutting out from the side of the building, his eyebrows are knitted together in concern.

Caught off guard, Madge forces a smile and gives him a little wave, but stays rooted in the spot.

He must sense her inability to move, because he takes the steps swiftly and jogs over to where she stands, under an ancient tree on one of the last patches of grass in the downtown.

The soggy grass makes squishing noises under his feet when he reaches it, splattering a small bit of mud on the bottoms of his pants and flicking Madge's bare legs as well. He doesn't seem to notice, he's wholly concerned with why his wife has decided to seek him out at work.

Before Madge can say so much as 'hi', he's pulled her into a tight hug. "What's wrong?"

Madge laughs, trying to make it sound light but only succeeding in making a weary noise. She pulls back, pops up on her toes and presses a kiss to his lips. "Nothing's wrong."

He gives her a scrutinizing look. "Then why are you here?"

Taking his hand, still tanned despite the long winter and just as rough as it had been back in Twelve when he'd made his living by them, Madge gives him a tug, over to a little stone bench and makes him sit beside her.

"I wanted to tell you something and I just-I couldn't wait," she tells him, letting her smile peak back out at him.

Despite her bright demeanor, Gale's expression remains stiff, a sort of terrified resignation shinning in his eyes. He nods, encouraging her to continue.

Even with his worry coloring the moment, Madge can't contain the news anymore. If he's even half as excited as she is she'll take it.

"I'm pregnant!" She blurts out before she can think of a better way to tell him.

For several seconds Gale just stares at her, his gray eyes just as dark and unpredictable as the clouds overhead. His hand is still in hers and she gives it a squeeze to try and get him to respond, break his trance, but his focus stays on her face.

Finally, he nods. "You're pregnant."

His eyes drop, down to her stomach, which hasn't changed since he'd left for work, and he nods again.

When he rakes his free hand through his hair, putting it on end, then drops his other from her grip, Madge thinks it's come to the worst. He's upset. He's realizing the enormity of what they've done and he wants out…

As tears are building up in her eyes, preparing to spill out, Gale grabs her and pulls her into his lap.

"You're pregnant," he whispers into her skin as he presses his face into the side of her neck, begins kissing up into her hair. He pulls back, tilts his head so that he's peering up at her. "We're going to have a baby."

Worry finally boiling over, the tears begin falling as Madge nods. "Yeah."

A smile, just as goofy and bright as the one Madge had worn when the doctor had given her the good news, forms on his lips. One of his rough hands reaches up and brushes away the tears trailing down her cheeks and he cranes up to kiss her. "We're gonna have a baby."

His hand drops down and presses flat against her stomach. He looks up at her, anxiety creeping back into his features.

"How far? Is everything okay?"

Madge grabs his hand and presses a kiss to his palm. "About fourteen weeks. The doctor said everything is perfect."

"Fourteen weeks," he repeats. His expression drops. "You didn't know for fourteen weeks?"

With a snort, Madge smiles. "I had an idea I might be, but…I just wanted to wait."

Gale's mouth forms a line and his eyebrows pull together. "You should've told me. What if something had happened? What if I did something and hurt you? I could've-when we were in the shower or-"

Madge presses her hand over his mouth and gives him an exasperated half smile. "There's nothing you could've done to hurt me, Gale. I'm a little tougher than you think."

He doesn't look so certain, but he keeps his thoughts to himself, at least for the time being.

They sit under the tree for several more minutes, letting the last drops of the earlier rain drip down on them from where they had been clinging to the newly opening foliage on the tree, enjoying the moment before Gale frowns.

"How did you get to the doctor?"

Madge feels her cheeks begin to warm. Gale hates the bus, says they're dangerous and unreliable. He'll be twice as annoyed as usual she took it to the doctor rather than tell him where she was going and having him take her. "I rode."

He sighs. "Madge…"

"I didn't want to ask one of the boys or you mother," she begins to explain. "They would ask questions and I wanted you to be the first to know, you know, if I was pregnant, which I am. So see? I was right."

With a huff, Gale lets his forehead come to a rest against Madge's shoulder. After a second he looks up with a chuckle. "As happy as I am that I'm the first to know, I would still rather have been second than have you on that metal deathtrap."

"It's not a deathtrap," Madge tells him, a little smile creeping back onto her face. "I guess I could've rode my bike…"

"No," he tells her. "No more biking. Please promise me no more biking. And you can't walk all over the place anymore, alright? There are four people in our family that can drive, and none of us are going to make a pregnant lady walk with armloads of groceries."

He's off on a ramble, telling her he'll have Vick take them to the library to get every book on pregnancy there is, they'll talk to his mother-she's been pregnant enough times, she'll know everything- and he's coming with her to every appointment from here on out.

"I'll threaten to quit if they tell me no," he tells her.

She snorts. "They'd never want to lose the great General Hawthorne, right?"

"You laugh, but it's true." He presses a kiss to her cheek. "They won't want to make me mad."

When another rumble of thunder rolls through the air, Gale stands and pulls Madge to her feet.

"Come on. I need to get my keys and tell them I have to drive my crazy wife home."

"Your crazy pregnant wife," Madge adds.

Gale's smile widens. "My crazy pregnant wife."

He gently puts his arm around her shoulder, presses a kiss to her hair and sighs. "We should stop for lunch too."

Madge shrugs. "I'm really not that hungry, but there's food at home."

Gale shakes his head. "No, you need to eat. You're making a person in there. You need all the extra nutrients you can get."

Rolling her eyes, Madge laughs. "Are you going to force feed me?"

"If I have to," he chuckles. "I'm not letting anything happen to either of you."

Arms sneaking around his middle, Madge gives him a squeeze. "I know you won't."


	49. Smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale watches as Madge smiles and nods, forces a fake laugh for the graying man chatting with her over by the dessert table.

The man probably thinks she's enjoying herself by the way she encouraged whatever silly story he was telling her, and to be honest, years before Gale would've thought the same thing. Outwardly she's the picture of contented.

Now, years later and far removed from her position as the daughter of a Mayor, after getting to know her, Gale can see she isn't enjoying herself.

Her smile is forced, it doesn't reach her eyes, not like when she's at her job in the coffee shop or, if he's not being too self certain, when she's talking to him. Her laugh is empty, not the warm one, punctuated with a snort, she uses when she's truly amused. The way she's standing, holding herself, fixing all the little nuances of her being scream to Gale that she's playing a part.

He can't believe he had ever thought her stiff posture and glazed smiles were genuine. It seems so blazingly obvious now.

"You thought what you needed to think," Madge told him with a shrug, as though it didn't shock her when he pointed out his mischaracterization.

"I thought the worst of you," Gale muttered.

"In your defense, I'm very good at being the daughter of a politician. If people could read through me it could've put the whole District at risk," she countered.

Gale had rolled his eyes. He'd doubted that one person's actions or words could've harmed an entire District, until several painful images of Katniss pulled forward in his mind.

Her actions and words, as well as Peeta's, had brought about a Revolution, even if that hadn't been their intent. One person had, unwillingly and unwittingly, brought down the Capitol. First though, she's brought down scrutiny on their District. Increased Peacekeepers that were far less forgiving than the old, the changing of the guard from old Cray to that bastard Thread, the overwhelming sense of despair…

One person most definitely could make that kind of impact.

The difference between Madge and Katniss, though, would've been that Madge's impact would've been calculated. Just like her non presence was carefully thought out, her impact would've been planned. Not because she was the spoiled brat he'd believed her to be, but because she wasn't.

Madge, he'd discovered over the time he'd gotten to know her since reconnecting, was anything but spoiled. She was as much a study in sacrifice as himself and Katniss, except instead of food and clothing, Madge had lacked the freedom to be herself.

While he could occasionally escape the District, vanish into the welcoming arms of the forest, Madge had never had such a luxury.

"They were always watching. Waiting for us to step out of line." She'd sighed. "We were lucky though. District Twelve wasn't quite as well watched as the other Districts. At least some of our citizens could get away with things."

She'd meant him, even if she hadn't called him by name. Gale had gotten the relief of breaking the rules, flaunting them really, while Madge had stayed safe in her cage, forcing smiles and laughs for officials to keep the eye of the government off people who thought little of her.

"You should've told someone," he mentioned on more than one occasion.

"Told who?" She'd laughed. "Who would've cared? I wasn't exactly well liked. I didn't have people lining up to hang out with me or listen to my problems. They would've told me to stop whining, that I had it too good to be complaining about little things like not being able to speak my mind or do little things everyone else took for granted. And let's face it, they were probably right."

There was a sense of finality to her last words that made Gale's chest ache.

He would've been one of those people that didn't know her and judged her, told her the problems she was facing were small and insignificant compared to his, and she would've taken his words to heart with one of her fake smiles and vacant looks.

Just like everyone else, Gale hadn't appreciated the significance of her imperceptible sacrifice. Now he does, and his oversight creates one more scar on his already heavily marked soul. Another charge against him for his endless failures in life.

"I'm sorry," he told her when he realized how she'd had to live. That life would've suffocated him and he can't believe he ever thought she'd been happy living that way.

"It's just how it was." She shrugged again. A smile, real and warm, formed on her face. "Gale, the past is in the past. You didn't know how it was-"

"I could've guessed." In fact, it should've been clear to him. He trusted the Capitol less than anyone, but he'd never imagined that they were squeezing an invisible vice around the people Gale had always seen as their own.

"I wouldn't've been playing my part well if you had." She laughed. The smile fell from her lips at Gale's dark look.

"Gale, don't think you could've seen through me, or my family. Hiding was what we did. It kept us alive. It kept you alive. The things I learned to do, to hide and lie and insulate myself, those things kept me alive this far. Those things are the only reason in still standing, the only reason I'm not a puddle on the floor. Don't feel bad about all that. It's behind us."

He felt a cool hand encircle his, give it a squeeze. "It doesn't matter."

Maybe not to her, but it mattered quite a lot to Gale. He'd wronged her, let his anger cloud his judgment, not for the first time and not for the last time. At least with Madge he was getting the opportunity to make amends.

Taking another long drink from his glass, finally emptying it of its contents, Gale gets up from the bar and crosses the room.

He reaches Madge just as the man is trying to wheedle a dance out of her.

"You wouldn't break an old man's heart," Gale hears him say as he takes Madge's hand and gives her a sickeningly sweet smile.

No, but I'd break an old man's face, Gale thinks irritably.

Madge is about to smile and accept, she sees no way out and her manners won't let her simply tell him no, when Gale comes up behind her and tugs the back of her dress, making her hand slip from the man's grasp.

"Sorry, sir," Gale tells the man, who up close Gale recognizes as being a businessman from Six. "She's already promised me the last dance and this is it. We have an early train to catch in the morning."

The man looks Gale up and down, sizing him up, before a look of defeat crosses his face and he nods, clearly knowing he's outranked.

"Of course." He gives Madge another oily smile. "Perhaps next time, my dear?"

Madge's false smile never falters. "Perhaps."

Gale pulls her with him toward the exit, but she stops him with a tug towards the edge of the dance floor.

"You said we were dancing."

Gale scowls. "That was just to get him off you. I want to get out if this hellhole."

Some of the women's perfume is giving him a headache and he doesn't know how much more of the foul smelling cigars from Two he can inhale.

A real smile forms softly on Madge's lips.

"You said we were now you have to, Gale." She jerks him toward the edge of the dance floor and forces him into complying with a sharp look. "It's part of the game, Gale. You have to play it if you ever want to get anything done."

He almost points out that his reputation should be enough to get him where he needs to go, but Madge knows better than he does that there's more to getting things done than just having a name. She's played this game a lot longer than him and has all the moves down flawlessly.

Making sure she sees his look of exasperation, Gale lets her pull him the rest of the way to the dance floor. He's not particularly good at this whole dancing thing, but Madge makes him look halfway decent at it.

His hand settles on her hip, her warmth seeping through his palm, and he takes her chilled fingers in his calloused ones as the band slows the music.

"Just follow my lead," Madge whispers.

As they start to sway, barely turn on their little patch if dance floor, Gale catches a whiff of her raspberry shampoo and honey lotion and lets out a sigh. The throbbing in his head from all the noxious smells eases up a bit.

There aren't many parts of this game he understands, and even fewer he enjoys, and dancing with Madge sometimes falls into the former, but it also definitely qualifies as enjoyable.

He steps on her foot and she winces slightly.

"Sorry," Gale whispers.

Well, for him it's enjoyable anyways.

When he notices the old man watching them enviously, Gale tightens his grip on Madge's waist and presses her a little closer to his body, just to make it clear she's off limits. She may not be with Gale, but she is there with him, and he isn't going to let some smarmy old man paw at her just to build goodwill with him.

Gale may not know much about Madge's games, but he definitely knows how dirty old men's minds work and what puts them off. In the hierarchy of men, Gale knows he outranks an aging businessman, even if he probably shouldn't, and he plans on making that as obvious as he can for Madge's sake.

When the song stops and Madge peers up at him, Gale gives her a small, worried smile. Her feet are probably sore and he had holding her a little tighter than was necessary.

He's relieved, though, when she returns his weak smile with a real one.


	50. Learning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale watched as Savanna pulled her little arrow back and took aim, let go, and sent it several yards and into the small target he'd set up for her and Glen.

"I did it, daddy!" She squealed and did a little dance, the bottom of her skirt flying wildly as she did.

She'd only just barely hit the target. Her arrow is buried in the bottommost corner, almost so shallow in the sawdust pillow supporting the target it's a wonder it doesn't fall out.

Still, she had made it. Better than the last few weeks of practice.

"Next time, keep both your eyes open," Glen offered helpfully, demonstrating with his own bow. "Maybe you'll hit a little higher."

Savanna watches her brother reverently as he lets his own arrow sail through the air, hit the center of the target with a thud. Her dance begins anew. "Yay! Good job, Glen!"

Her dark hair goes flying in all directions, falling from her loose ponytail haphazardly.

Glen grabs her by the hands and joins in on her celebration, spinning her around until her feet leave the ground. They stop when his feet tangle with each other and they both crash to the ground in a heap of giggles.

"Alright," Gale tells them, trying not to laugh at their antics, "let's eat some lunch. Your mom'll kill me if all her hard work goes to waste."

"She just made sandwiches," Glen points out. "How is that hard?"

"Fine, she'll kill me if her time was wasted, smartypants."

Glen smirks at that and runs off, to the tree where Gale had left the basket of food Madge had packed for them before their trip into the woods behind their house. Really, they're only a few miles off, neither Glen nor Savanna can make any longer a trip than that at their ages, but it's still too far to trek back for lunch.

Savanna grabs Gale by the hand and walks with him, chattering about her surely above average skill with her bow and how many 'duckies' she's going to shoot someday.

"But I don'wanna pull they feathers," she tells him with a stern look, as though he'd brought it up. "You an'Glen can do that."

When they get to the tree, Gale settling with his back against the rough bark, Savanna plops into his lap and begins picking at her sandwich.

"You wan'this, daddy?" She asks with each fleshy red tomato she pulls from her meal.

"I thought you liked tomatoes?" He frowns as he accepts the perfect slice in his hand, then another. She'd liked them just two days before.

"No, not anymore," she answers, shutting her sandwich back up with a smile before eating it.

Gale just closes his eyes. His children make no sense sometimes.

Adding Savanna's discarded tomatoes to his sandwich, Gale shuffles her in his lap a little, then begins to eat.

"Daddy," Savanna begins again, "you should teach momma how t'shoot too."

With a chuckle, Gale plucks a little sprig of grass from her hair and tosses it into the wind. "What makes you think I haven't?"

Years before, when they hadn't even started dating yet, Gale had taken Madge out to try to teach her at the very least, the basics of shooting a bow.

The new government was popular, had a lot of support, but there were still those who supported the way things had been, people who wanted the ways of the Capitol reinstated.

No matter how strong the government he'd helped build was, how much he believed in it, there was always the chance it could fall. If a regime as strong as Snow's could be toppled by rebels, the new government could be undermined, destroyed in the blink of an eye.

He'd wanted Madge to be prepared.

"Gale, honestly, I get sick just hearing about Katy-Jo Lewes talking about butchering the goats. What makes you think I could shoot and cut up some poor little creature?"

"If you're hungry enough you would," he'd answered, a little sharply.

It hadn't swayed her though, and she'd refused to even take up the bow when he'd offered it to her.

A few years later, after they'd been dating for a while, he'd tried again.

"Please, Madge, I don't want you to be helpless if something happens."

Reluctantly, she'd tried, followed his directions to the letter, practiced whenever Gale was around to supervise.

She wasn't bad, she wasn't great either. Gale was pretty sure Madge wouldn't have been able to hit a living, moving target with an arrow, but she could at least scare an intruder off long enough to make a run for it. That much he was certain of.

Occasionally he still tries to get her to come out with him, the kids, and sometimes his brothers and sister, but she normally turns him down.

"Gale, there are hunters and there are gatherers. I'm a gatherer," she explained. "And you're my hunter."

"What if I'm not here?" The fear of dying young, like his father, still haunted him. He didn't just have Madge to worry about, he had Glen and Savanna. They'd lived easy lives so far. If something happened to Gale he didn't know what would happen to them. Neither of the kids would be good enough to hunt on their own for several years, he was positive of that.

Madge just pressed a kiss to his lips, patted his stubble covered cheek. "Then I have two strapping young brothers-in-law that will swoop in and help me." She squinted up at him. "And I'll have you know that despite what you may think, I'm not helpless. I'd find a way to survive, with or without you there."

With a grin, Gale had wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair, inhaling the clean scent that clung to her.

He was well aware she wasn't helpless, that she was too clever to let the fall of the government kill her. Madge would find a way to survive, even if that way didn't involve his preferred means of doing so.

"I know how to set a pretty good snare," she'd added. "Granted, I still wouldn't be able to skin the poor thing."

Gale just rolled his eyes. "It's a good thing we have such hearty children then."

"Exactly," Madge nodded.

Savanna wrinkles her nose up, reminding Gale entirely too much of her mother, before sighing and returning to her sandwich. "Okay."

Gale chuckles again, tugs at the tip of her ponytail, then presses a kiss into her dark hair. It smells like sunshine, warm and clean.

"How about I teach you some snares?"

Glen, who'd taken up a spot near the pond, at the edge of the tree's shade, perked up, quickly swallowing down his mouthful of sandwich. "I can teach her that!"

He scrambles up, tossing the last bite of his sandwich into the water near a group of ducklings before half running to where Gale and Savanna are.

"Dad, I can teach her snares. I'm good at them, remember?"

Savanna frowns, tilts her head back and peers at Gale, awaiting his answer.

Fighting off laughter, Gale nods. Glen is good at snares, had picked them up easily when Gale had taught them to him, but his enthusiasm at passing his knowledge on to his sister is a little comical.

"Why do you want to teach her?" Gale finally asks.

Glen frowns, as though it should be the most obvious thing in the world. "'Cause you showed me, and I wanna be like you."

Gale smiles, feels his face warm under the studious stares of his children.

He knows his son shouldn't want to be like him, Gale isn't a good person and he knows that, but hearing the simple praise makes him feel like he might be inching closer to redemption.

"I guess you can show her the basics," Gale finally relents, not nearly as hesitant as he pretends to be.

Glen's smile widens and he nods, reaching out and grabbing Savanna's hand and trying to pull her from Gale's lap.

"I'm not finished," Savanna tells him, pulling her hand back as she resumes eating her sandwich. Her bites are agonizingly slow.

After a thoughtful bite, her pale gray eyes turn up to Gale.

"Daddy, can I have one of your tomatoes?"

Gale tries not to groan.

His children make no sense sometimes.


	51. Tears (Anniversary)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers.

The first time Madge sees Gale crying is the anniversary of the bombing of Twelve.

She wakes and finds the bed across from hers empty, still made despite the fact that she'd seen him getting ready for bed at the same time as her. He'd even told her how tired the train ride had made him, how happy he was to see a bed, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Madge rolls out of bed, bare feet softly settling on the expensive carpet of the hotel room. She sits there for a moment, getting her balance back, before standing and stretching. A breeze, a bit warm, thick and uncomfortable, floats past her, and when she looks toward the double doors leading out to the veranda she sees it's open.

Getting up, she slowly makes her way to the door, open just a hair, and quietly steps out.

The wood is still warm under her feet, the nights are still too hot for it to cool completely, and she lets her skin soak in the pleasant heat for a moment before looking around.

Gale is sitting at the little café table, his elbows to his knees and his head in his hands, fingers woven into his dark hair.

At first Madge thinks he's asleep. Maybe he came out for a bit of fresh air and just nodded off, but then she hears him take a ragged breath and that possibility dissolves in the humid air.

Silently, she pads across to him, reaches out and lets one of her hands come to a rest on his shoulder. "Gale?"

He doesn't look up, just sighs. "Go back to bed, Madge."

There's no conviction in his voice, just a sad sort of resignation, so Madge walks around to his front, runs her hands through his hair, tugging gently on it. "Gale."

It takes a minute for him to look up. He scrubs his hands roughly over his face before he does, forces a small smile, but his eyes are red rimmed and pink still.

Madge's eyebrows pull together. "What's wrong?"

He gives her a wet little chuckle. "Nothing. Go back to bed."

"Gale-"

He gets up, rubs his neck in agitation and walks to the rail, crosses his arms and stares out across the dimly lit city.

Feeling put out, Madge walks across to him, leans against the rail and looks up, wide eyed and waiting. He'll tell her if she's persistent enough.

Finally, he closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose before glancing down at her. "Do you know what day it is?"

Madge's nose wrinkles. "Well, it's after midnight so-"

"Today is the day they bombed Twelve," he cuts her off. "It's the anniversary."

His eyes, as intensely gray as ever, seem to burn through her as he waits for her response, but she doesn't have one. She'd forgotten that was today, and she isn't sure if that makes her happy or sad.

"Oh," is all she manages to say. "I didn't realize."

He huffs, shakes his head, as though he can't believe anyone could forget something as terrible as the destruction of their home.

"I've spent a long time trying to keep my eyes on the future, Gale," she tells him coldly. "Forgive me if I don't put my misery on the calendar."

With that she heads back in, to let him wallow in his misery alone and not let him make her feel bad for not remembering something so terrible, but he catches her by the wrist.

"Wait," he sighs, eyes closing and expression shifting from disgust to something softer, apologetic. "I'm sorry. I-It's just hard to imagine forgetting something like that."

Taking his hand from her wrist, Madge clasps it between her own, smiles sadly down at it.

"I forget days, not events, Gale." She looks out at the city, at the speckles of light spread across it, stretching into the distance around them. "This was the day my parents died. I don't really feel like celebrating it, or ruminating over all the things that went wrong that day, or whatever it is you want to do."

His hand, so much larger and rougher than her own, wraps around one of hers and gives it a squeeze as his eyebrows scrunch together. "I'm sorry. I forgot I guess."

"Must be nice," she mutters before she can stop herself. A little ache filling her chest at the thought of her parents.

Gale pulls her into a hug, crushes her against his chest and buries his face into her hair, taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Madge. I didn't mean it like that."

She knows he didn't, but it still stings. He escaped with his whole family, went to a new life, a better life, gained freedom and respect, Madge had lost everything. She can't forget that, even if she can forget the date.

His fingers weave through her hair, comb through it softly as he gently sways back and forth, letting Madge absorb the pleasant warmth of his skin through his pajamas.

"I guess I'm a little morbid, huh?" he mumbles into her hair.

Madge chuckles, all her annoyance vanishing with the feel of his lips against her scalp. "My mother loved anniversaries. Birthdays and weddings…and when people died." She shrugs. "I just didn't get that gene I guess."

She feels him nod and it eases her mind just a little. He doesn't think her heartless for trying not to remember one of the defining moments of her life, and that eases the pain in her chest a little.

They stay on the veranda until the sun comes up, not speaking about what the day marks, but acknowledging it just the same.

#######

Madge finds Gale sitting in front of the fireplace on the anniversary of his whipping.

She'd expected it this time, prepared herself for what was coming, but it's still jarring, finding him sitting in front of an empty fireplace, pushing the ash around with the poker.

There are no tears this time, no emotion at all, just an empty silence and a painful cold around him.

Without a word Madge drops down beside him, lets her head come to a rest against his shoulder.

"Did you see?" He asks, his voice a rough whisper that sends a chill up her spine.

A thin silence stretches out as Madge tries to decide if she wants to admit that she is all too aware of what day it is. Finally, she sighs. "Yeah."

"How much?"

Chewing her lip, Madge shrugs. "Enough."

She'd stumbled onto his whipping and seen enough to know he'd need help beyond what even Katniss with her otherworldly powers could provide. Madge had known that her mother's morphling was the only thing strong enough to dull Gale's pain to a survivable level.

He's never mentioned it, so she assumes no one had ever told him that it was her that had provided him the medicine, or if they'd even told him that he'd received any medicine at all.

For a moment she entertains the idea of telling him all of it, but just as quickly as the idea forms it dissolves in the dark of the night.

She and Gale hadn't been friends then. He'd only barely seemed to tolerate her existence, and telling him that she'd risked arrest, gotten a cold by running through a blizzard, just to ease his suffering would only open her up to questions she isn't sure she can answer.

If he were to ask her why she did it she isn't sure she'd be able to speak to him again. He's too precious to her as a friend for her to risk losing him over her still glowing crush on him. She won't risk telling him, making the comfortable friendship they've developed awkward and embarrassing, even if she feels like he deserves to know.

Instead of saying anything, Madge crawls forward and snatches up the matches, tries several times, unsuccessfully, to light them up before Gale chuckles warmly and takes the little box from her hands.

"Watch."

With little effort the match hisses, casting them both in a dim flicker of yellow light before Gale crawls forward and starts the fire.

In no time it's burning brightly, warming the still and cold air around them.

Gale settles down on his side, propping himself up on his elbow and gazing up at Madge, the light from the fire dancing in his eyes. He reaches out, pulls Madge to him and wraps her in his arms.

"I wasn't afraid of dying," he tells her, once she's securely pressed against him. "I was just afraid of what would happen to my family."

They'd have been alone, he was their main breadwinner. The Hawthornes might not have survived the rest of the winter if Gale hadn't pulled through.

After a moment of thought, Madge starts to tell him that Katniss would've taken care of them, but stops herself. Katniss is a topic he likes to avoid, and bringing up that she would've protected his siblings when she knows he feels he so horribly failed Prim seems like a bad move.

I would've taken care of them. She bites that thought back too. Just like the morphling, she thinks it would open her up to too many questions she can't answer.

Finally, she twists around, wraps him in her arms and presses her cheek to his chest, closing her eyes and memorizing the sound of his heart and the scent of his skin. Her fingers absently trace the ridges and valleys of the scars of his back.

There's nothing she can say, and really, there's no reason to say anything. Gale had survived, his family had survived, and mulling over what could've happened is just picking at a healing wound. She won't do it.

Instead, she just holds him, letting the snowy day drift away while they sit in the warmth of the fire.

#######

When Independence Day rolls around Madge stays firmly at Gale's side, her hand wrapped around his, lending him what little strength she has.

They make it through the celebrations, once again in Ten.

Madge keeps her face pressed into his side during the fireworks, lets him wrap his arms around her and block out the loudest of the celebratory booms as they burst into brilliant colors against the western sky.

It's the anniversary of the end of the war, but Madge knows that for Gale it's also the anniversary of Prim's death. The anniversary of his bomb.

"When I was little," she tells him, as the last of the red chrysanthemums fade into smoke in the sky, "my father told me about the wars of the nation that existed before Panem."

There were people that created the bomb that destroyed cities, lead to the creation of the nuclear bombs that Thirteen was so famous for. They opened the door for an arms race that spanned decades, threatened to plunge the entire world yet another war, one that there was no guarantee anyone would win.

"I'm less terrible than the people that made the first atomic bomb," Gale shakes his head, laughs mirthlessly. "Great."

"They weren't terrible, Gale," Madge tells him. "They were just people working under extreme conditions. They did what they felt they needed to do, just like you did, and you were under a lot more duress than any of them. You'd spent your entire life being beaten down by the Capitol."

The rebels had used the Capitol's tactics against it with the propos and Gale had only been following their lead. He'd been thinking like the enemy, for better or worse, and now he was living with the emotional fallout from it.

"If it hadn't been you, it would've been someone else," she says.

"But it was me." His expression gets taut. "I came up with it. I designed it. I killed those kids. I encouraged the destruction of the Nut in Two. I'm a bad person. I'm a murderer."

"Gale!" Madge grabs his hand and squeezes it, fixes him in a hard stare. "You are not-"

"I-"

"No," she shakes her head. "You made mistakes. You acted out of fear and anger, but who hasn't?"

"Have any of your temper tantrums ever gotten anyone killed?" He asks, his voice a low growl as his eyes burn into hers.

Madge feels her skin heat under his gaze and she focuses her eyes on one of the pins on his jacket. It's a bit ostentatious, a bit too formal for Gale, but he wears it well.

"No," she swallows down a lump, "but I've watched terrible things happened and kept quiet, been too afraid to say anything. Silence makes me just as much a murderer as you."

There had been raids. Peacekeepers, caught by bands of angry wranglers and worn and weary citizens of District Ten, had been taken and beaten, strung up and hung. Revenge killings for decades of watching the hand of the Capitol crush the spirits and hopes of their people.

It had been wrong, even the newly elected Mayor had acknowledged that during her acceptance speech, but in the heat of the moment no one had spoken up for the terrified Peacekeepers.

"They were someone's children, daughters and sons. They were human beings plucked up and placed into an unsavory position," the Mayor had told a crowd after her election. "The people of District Ten send our sincerest apologies to the families of the Peacekeepers killed. We will never forget the sins of our anger."

Madge had watched, horrified but silent, as men and women were taken and humiliated before very public executions.

Her heart had always told her to speak up, try to stop the madness, but what good would one voice in a sea of thousands have done?

Still, she thinks she should've tried. Her failure will haunt her conscience for the rest of her life.

Gale's rough hand comes up to her cheek, his thumb brushing under her eye and smearing something wet and warm across it. She's crying, again, damn that.

Looking up through her stinging eyes, Madge forces a little smile for him. "So I guess we're just a couple of horrible people, then?"

Before she knows what he's doing, Gale has pulled her into another crushing hug. She feels something warm and wet trickle onto her scalp, where Gale has his face pressed into her hair, but she doesn't say anything.

"I don't think you're horrible," he whispers, his hot breath chilling against the moisture from his tears in her hair.

Madge snakes her arms around his waist, closes her eyes tightly to try to keep from soaking his shirt with her silly tears. "I don't think you're a horrible either."

After a few long minutes, she pulls back, rubs her eyes with the back of her hand, smiles up at him.

"Do you know what else today is?"

A little line forms between his eyes as he thinks then shakes his head.

"It's the anniversary of the day we met again."

He hadn't known it at the time, and Madge hadn't wanted him to, but he knows now that the girl he'd tried to comfort after the celebration was her.

A little smile creeps onto his face and a soft chuckle rumbles in his chest. "Yeah, I guess it is, isn't it?"

Madge falls back into him, keeps him held tight against her in a hug. She'll squish happiness into him if she has to, surliness, she's decided, doesn't suit him. His smiles are too nice for him to revert back to his scowls.

They walk back to his hotel, sit in the garden for hours before Gale convinces her that it wouldn't be safe to walk back to the coffee shop by herself.

"You take the bed," he insists. "The couch isn't too bad."

He's asleep, softly snoring, before Madge has even finished brushing her teeth.

Smiling to herself, Madge snuggles down into the sheets. They smell like Gale, like earth and wind.

Rolling to her side, her eyes drift shut as she watches the rhythmic rise and fall of Gale's chest from his spot on the couch.

This won't be the last time they deal with his bomb, his scars, his guilt, things like those don't vanish even with time, but she hopes he learns to remember the good that comes with each tragedy.

Twelve was gone, but so was the Capitol. He'd been whipped, but he'd survived. He'd created a bomb that had killed innocents and been on the side of those in favor of destroying the Nut, but he was making amends for those sins, he was becoming a better person with each day. Things have changed, he's changed, and she'll be by his side reminding him that even though he's made mistakes, he is more than that.

Hopefully, she thinks as he mind slows and settles for sleep, she'll be able to make more of his tears happy ones in the future.


	52. Soft

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers.

Gale kicks his locker closed, earning him a glare from the custodian. He doesn't care though. It isn't fair he got the lower one anyway. Chenille is shorter, she should've had to take it.

Turning his back on the man, Gale picks up his battered bag and heads down the hall.

He'd gotten detention, for not doing a stupid, pointless assignment, and now he had missed several hours of a pleasant winter afternoon in the woods. It was insult upon injury. Detention, a fail on his joke of a report card, and a lost hunt with his dad on a rare afternoon off. Pathetic.

Through the doors just ahead he can see it's already getting dark, two hours of banging chalk dust from his teacher's filthy erasers and now he's going to have to get home in the cold dark.

Pushing the doors open, Gale pulls his thin coat close around him and squints into the dimming sun and sighs.

He's barely down the steps when he sees something small and brown trundling along out the corner of his eye. Turning, he sees its a girl, younger than him by the size of her, head down, and clutching several books to her chest.

It takes a second before it registers just who it is.

Madge. Madge Undersee. The mayor's daughter.

Gale had met her in the library only a few days before, when she'd shown him and his dad where to find their book. Not that he hadn't known who she was before, he'd just never paid her much attention. She was beyond his friendship and his concern.

"Pretty girl, huh?" His dad had teased once they had walked her home.

Gale had just shrugged.

"You still pretending not to notice those things?" He asked, giving Gale a little nudge with his shoulder.

Gale was, at least around his dad. He teased Gale enough without any acknowledgment of the opposite sex.

"She's soft," Gale muttered, meaning it as a slight. It was a bit of a cruel label to pin on her, but a fitting one. She wasn't tough enough to even develop a crush on so noticing how pretty she was or wasn't didn't make a difference.

"I don't think so," his dad said with a smile. "People have strengths in different ways. You don't know her enough to know how strong she might be."

Gale had busied himself with the book after that. He hadn't wanted to think about pretty Madge Undersee or what she was like to get to know. It was better for him for her to be simply 'soft' and forgotten about.

That thought, that she's soft and shouldn't be wandering home in the dark, sticks in Gale's head as he watches her walk across the deserted courtyard separating the lower elementary she'd just left and the upper level school Gale had bound out of.

She'd probably stayed late to help in the library. She did that occasionally. Not that he paid attention to that kind of thing. The time had undoubtedly gotten away from her and when she'd noticed how late it was she'd left and the old volunteer in the library hadn't even offered to call someone to pick her up. Didn't they know how dangerous that could be? Not just because she's a little girl, but also the mayor's kid.

Scampering along, Madge stops and glances back at him. She eyes him for a moment, clutching her book to her chest a little tighter, then smiles weakly before taking off, her pace doubled.

He doesn't want to walk her home, and clearly she doesn't want his company, but Gale hears his dad's voice gently nudging him to keep an eye on her. Reluctantly, he follows her at a reasonable distance as a slow snow starts to come down.

Great. Now he gets to walk home in the cold and the dark and in snow. Just wonderful.

To her credit, Madge seems wholly aware of her surroundings. She takes the well lit paths instead of more convenient short-cuts, doesn't stop when a couple of older boys, high schoolers, goad her and yell obscene things at her back (and Gale shoots them a filthy look when he passes by for good measure), and she glances behind her every few blocks, aware of her follower. She never tries to lose him though, and he can only assume it's because she remembers him from the library and doesn't think he means her any harm. Or she's simply wary of any confrontation, he isn't sure.

Fat snowflakes are sticking to the ends of her hair, the long strands that are hanging out from under her woolly cap. It reminds Gale of the white candy coating her Granddad had sometimes coated strawberries with, before he died of course.

It only reinforces that she's soft in his mind. She's a candy-coated girl from Town, all fluff and frills, but out of reach. An expensive treat that'll be gone or wasted in the blink of an eye.

After a good ten minutes, guaranteeing Gale's dinner will be stone cold when he gets home, they finally reach the mayor's house.

Madge runs through the fence, letting the gate clatter shut behind her as she runs up the steps and to the back porch. With her hand on the screen, she turns and looks back at Gale.

They hold each other's stare for several seconds, and Gale can feel the snow starting to come down a little harder as he squints up at her. There are probably snowflakes on her eyelashes, a delicate dusting that makes Gale's stomach do an odd little flip-flop.

Finally, hesitantly, she raises her hand, gives him a little wave goodbye.

He doesn't wave back. It's too much of an acknowledgment that he's gone out of his way to make sure she got home safely, but he does jerk his head, just enough for her to see.

You're welcome.

Her cheeks, even from a distance, brighten and Gale's stomach lurches again. Probably hunger, he thinks.

Turning with a jerk, he's cold and stiff, Gale stomps off.

After he's out of the view of Madge's back porch, he starts to jog, causing snow that's accumulated in his hair while standing to bounce off. It melts, cold and wet down his neck. A sugar coating of his very own

Shivering, he smiles at the thought.

Maybe he's a little soft too.


	53. Soft, pt 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers.

Madge fastens the last button on her coat before digging her cap from her bag and plopping it on her head. It slips down over her eyes, pushing her bangs in her eyes for a few seconds before she adjusts it.

Once she can see again and feels secure for the walk home, she picks up her bag and slings it over her shoulder. Gripping the strap, she pushes the through the double doors leading out into the cold evening for the long lonely walk home alone.

The sun is setting and the sky overhead is already a chilly dark gray, paler at the horizon and painted a soft, dull blue. She shivers under her many layers.

She'd stayed after school a little too late, helping the old volunteering the library reshelf books several classes had strewn about during a frantic search for material for a newly announced book report. Nothing had been put back. Fictions were mixed, authors ignored and genres forgotten, and it had put the old lady in charge of the library in a state.

"No respect. None whatsoever," she'd muttered as she haphazardly pulled the wrongly placed books from the shelves and threw them into her cart.

Madge had felt a little guilty, simply because she knew how to correctly return the books to their proper place, and so had stayed over after class. It wasn't like Mrs. Oberst would care if she missed dinner.

After several hours though, she realized it was a little later than she'd anticipated.

With a soft little goodbye to the old lady, which had received only a huffy grunt in acknowledgement, Madge had gathered her things and left.

She doesn't like to walk home in the dark. People are scary enough in the bright light, but in the dying hours of the day they get downright terrifying.

When she's taken only a few steps out, almost slipping on a patch of dark ice, she feels eyes on her. Turning she sees a boy.

At first the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and she readies herself to run. He's tall and clearly from the upper level school, so he's older and she doesn't feel like having being catcalled in the courtyard, but then she squints a bit. He looks familiar.

Gale from the library. Mr. Hawthorne's son.

Briefly she wonders what he's doing there so late, then she notices the chalk powder on his sleeves and pants. Pounding out erasers is a favorite punishment of a lot of teachers and Madge wonders what he must've done to earn it.

Her mind immediately jumps to the old volunteer complaining about the older students getting in trouble for using the library for 'filthy liaisons', and she pictures Gale getting caught kissing behind the back stacks and cockily taking his punishment. He's certainly handsome enough to have any number of girls want to kiss him. Her cheeks burn at the thought.

He's glaring at her, as though she's interrupted something, so she forces a small smile for him before turning her pink ended face away and scurrying off a little faster than before.

For a few minutes she thinks she's alone again, just like always, traversing the long but well lit way home, until she senses someone behind her again.

With barely a half glance, she spots Gale again, trudging almost silently behind her, head down but stormy eyes flicking up to her every few minutes.

She isn't sure why he's following her. Maybe because she's alone and he's like his dad, reluctant to let someone so small and young make their way alone, but she isn't sure. For some reason she hopes not. She isn't that much younger than him and the thought that he sees her as a child stings a bit.

He follows behind her, always a safe distance away, both of them seemingly alone as they trundle along through the now falling snow in town.

Halfway home she passes a pair of rowdy boys, older than Gale even, probably a little drunk by the looks of them and obnoxious. They yell some nasty things at her as she passes by, though she doubts it has anything to do with who she is. They'd bother any girl that passed them by.

She doesn't stop, doesn't spare them so much as a glance, just plods past them as they sputter dim compliments then sputter thoughtless insults when she ignores their efforts.

Gale doesn't rush to her side and tell them off, though part of her wishes he would. That would ruin the illusion that they are separate entities, that they're alone on this walk together.

Her pace is steady until she reaches the gate to her house. Once through it, she races across the yard, up the back steps, and to the door.

Turning, she looks back at Gale.

He's got a heavy dusting of snow in his dark hair and she wonders if he'd accept a hat from her as payment for his not-quite walking her home. She doubts it. People from the Seam have very definite ideas about what equals what as far as payment, even if Madge doesn't understand it. Still, maybe she can sneak one of her dad's old ones into his locker eventually. The thought of him catching something just because he can't afford a proper hat makes her stomach hurt.

Reluctant as she is to see him go, letting him stand out in the increasingly cold dark of evening is almost painful to her. Raising her hand, she gives him a small wave goodbye, her cheeks heating up again under his gaze.

Thank you.

He doesn't wave back, just gives her a little nod before turning away and heading off, swallowed up into the evening before Madge has even locked the door behind her.

Peaking out the small window in the door, Madge pretends she sees Gale coming back to keep her company. She isn't quite ready to be alone again.


	54. Become what we hate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers.

Gale stares up at the photos all gazing out unblinkingly from their places on the wall of the former museum and frowns deeply.

They've been enhanced, the washed out colors, so common in school photos from the Districts, are unnaturally vibrant, the eyes are all just a shade too bright. It's unsettling to Gale, but he supposes old habits die hard.

The Capitol loves pageantry, and continuing to display the faces of their former Victors is a small way to allow them that under the guise of a memorial to the fallen.

He doesn't like it, but it's a concession that he'd had no say in, and they aren't likely to go back on it now. There are worse things they could've done, he supposes, like the plan someone had come up with for a series of gaudy fountains throughout the city and the other for hideous commemorative plates. The wall of pictures, with each of the Victors looking as they had at the moment of their Reapings, is the least offensive and most respectful he can hope to ever get out of the Capitol.

"It's nice," Madge murmurs, her eye scanning the photo's closely. Her lips twitch up a little at the soured look Gale shoots her way. "In its own way."

Grunting, Gale takes another long drink from his glass, emptying the amber liquid from it, before turning to find the boy to refill it. That's one of the only redeeming things about the Capitol galas, unlimited alcohol. It's the only way Gale's ever made it through any of them.

Madge's hand slip around Gale's arm and she squeezes it, causing him to look down into her wide, worried eyes.

"Baby steps, Gale," she whispers, giving him a sad little smile.

It instantly eases him, and he's happier now more than he's ever been at one of these stupid parties. Having Madge there may just keep him from drinking himself into a coma.

After the mess in Seven with Johanna he'd almost decided against taking her with him anywhere that there was a chance of running into the former Victor, like a stupid, forced, and outright unnecessary gala in the Capitol that Gale imagines they'd very much like to have as many high profile figures at as possible.

He'd imagined running into Johanna again, having her goad Madge, pick at wounds, this time in front of television cameras. Gale told his mother about the run in, but he knows she'd rather not have his mistakes broadcast to the entire nation. He could almost hear her sighing in disappointment at him when he pictured the sordid scene in his head.

Johanna never showed up, though. Neither did Beetee or Annie, and of course Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch were never going to come.

That only left Enobaria, who'd shown up dressed from head to toe in gold.

"Just like old times," Plutarch had chuckled, looking entirely too pleased at the thought of the times before the rebellion.

It made Gale's stomach roll and he'd willingly let Madge pull him away from the crushing crowd waiting for the moment and onto the dance floor.

The wall had been unveiled after that, a 'tribute' to the winning Tributes, with Enobaria pulling the rope on the red velvet curtain to reveal the memorial.

"They should've posted the pictures of all the Tributes," Gale had grumbled.

It wasn't right. There were more than just seventy-five children whose lives had been changed, destroyed.

No one cares though. Every child, every family of a Tribute that had died in the Games has been forgotten. They've been brushed aside in the name of progress. Everyone is turning a blind-eye to the missing faces, just like the Capitol had done for so many years, and it makes Gale's blood boil.

With a sigh, he pulls Madge to him and buries his face in her soft, sweet smelling hair.

"They don't even care that they've left out over a thousand faces from their wall," he grumbles, more to himself than to Madge.

He feels her nod against him. "Maybe they'll put them up one day. At least there's a memorial here now, not just that awful museum. You can suggest it to President Paylor."

Madge is probably at least a little more upset than she lets on. Her aunt had been a Tribute, after all, and Maysilee Donner's face is just as missing from the wall as all the others. After Madge's parents' sacrifice, her sacrifice, Gale feels that her family at least deserves a little recognition. They'll never get it though.

Gale lets out a long breath and glares through the pillars and heavy, expensive draperies of the former museum and out at the glittering city surrounding them.

Even after the war, being bombed and invaded, having the disgusting people in charge incarcerated, the Capitol still shines. The power had been restored almost instantaneously; the water and waste, the influx of food and goods, all began again within days of the government's fall. It had made Gale furious.

"We lived without electricity and starving for decades," he'd snapped, anger at himself bubbling over at Haymitch, who, for what may be the first time in his miserable life hadn't done anything to deserve being yelled at. "Why can't they function for a little while?"

"They don't know how," Haymitch had answered wearily. He'd chuckled. "I think if we're going to deserve this win, we're going to have to prove it."

Gale hadn't understood what he'd meant at the time, though distance had given him clarity.

Once Gale's demons had caught up with him, dressed up in faces he didn't recognize, he'd finally realized what exactly Haymitch had been trying to tell him.

If they wanted to rule this country, they needed to prove they were better than what they were replacing, and at that point, they hadn't come even close.

Using the enemy's tactics against it, not being able to see the harm it could cause, would cause, had only pushed them further toward being just as bad as Snow and his people.

Making the people of the Capitol comfortable was the least they could do, to not would be cruel to people that Gale came to see as somewhat infantile. They'd never survive without at the very least some basic comforts.

He'd expected Prim to haunt him. Expected her to taunt him for his failure to protect her, for being the one to break Katniss, for being too stupid to see just what Coin was and how far she was willing to go to get what she wanted, for being blinded by his hate and allowing himself to be used to destroy innocent lives.

She'd never materialized. He should've known. Even in death, Prim was too good to torment him, even though he deserved it.

Instead he'd gotten strangers.

He hadn't seen that his anger, even if justified, was dangerous, lethal even, and the kids he'd murdered had infected his mind.

"Did you think only the guilty would pay?" A boy had asked him, frowning, wavy hair hanging in his eyes.

Another girl, dark skinned and so familiar Gale could taste her name on the tip of his tongue, had simply collapsed, over and over and over again, dying, bleeding to death right in front of him for weeks on end before the next little demon invaded.

They'd all seemed so familiar, not Capitol at all, that Gale had finally decided that his mind had stripped the vibrant colors from their hair and skin, changed their gaudy clothes, and made them more like himself, just to amplify his pain. Until he'd finally made the connection.

"The Capitol never really pays; don't you know that, Dorothy?" The little girl, not the obnoxious Victor with green hair and a smirk, had asked, her voice so small and broken Gale almost tried to reach out and hug her.

She was tiny, smaller than Vick, even though Gale would've pegged her at the same age, and she was wearing an ill fitting dress.

Looking up at the faces on the wall, Gale finds the same little girl in the same tattered and poorly fitting green dress with a miniscule, vacant smile, staring out at the city until eternity.

He recognizes a few other faces from his nightmares, but there are still too many missing to count. Tributes that had died on his television, murdered by the Capitol for nineteen years of his life, had taken the place of the Capitol children Gale's hands and his designs had killed.

It's fitting, he thinks, that the ghosts haunting him aren't the children of the Capitol, but the children the Capitol had murdered.

At some point, he hadn't realized when, he'd become what he hated and the little voices and faces he'd watched murdered by the Capitol had reminded him of that.

The dreams aren't as frequent now, just interspersed with his old nightmare of the mines and his father, the bombing and his pitiful failure to get to Madge, among other things, but they're still there, waiting in his subconscious to steal his sleep and frighten Madge.

"Gale," Madge's soft voice pulls him back, breaks his concentration. "Gale, they're dead, but we aren't going to forget them. None of them."

He shakes his head, lets his eyes wander, over to a handsome boy, bronze hair and tanned skin, grinning cheekily out at nothingness. Finnick Odair before the Capitol had pulled him into pieces and glued him back together to please themselves.

Arms tightening around her, Gale closes his eyes and inhales the crisp scent of the air and tries to forget that he's no better than the people that killed the handsome boy and the girl whose name he can't bring himself to remember and the little girl in the hand-me-down dress.

"We've got to be better than them, Madge," he murmurs into her hair. "I don't want my legacy to be the deaths I caused."

He feels tears prickling at the backs of his eyes and squeezes the lids tight to keep them from spilling out, but he's a few seconds too late and a few manage to slip out.

If the press sees him they'll have a field day.

Madge pulls back and Gale feels the chill of the air around him replacing the warmth of her body as she takes his face in her hands and brushes the pair of watery traitors from his cheeks.

Her nose wrinkles up, lips puckering as she thinks before popping up on her toes and pressing a kiss to his lips.

"Our legacies are only our mistakes if we don't learn from them." A little smile forms on her lips. "And you know you made a mistake. You've seen what you can do and you aren't going to let that happen ever again, not by your hand or anyone else's, right?"

He wishes he had half as much faith in himself as she has in him, but he doubts he ever will. Not after his bomb, not after seeing just how dark his soul really is, not after knowing just how bad he can be.

His eyes are opened to just how terrible he is, he'll never be able to unsee that.

She isn't wrong though, he'll spend the rest of his life keeping anyone else from condemning themselves to his fate. It's one of his missions, to make up for his blinding anger that had cost him and so many other so much.

"Right," he finally answers, taking her hands and kissing her fingertips. Glancing around to make sure the press is still safely trapped with Plutarch and his assistant, blabbering away about something or another, Gale begins tugging her toward the balcony. "Come on, let's get the hell out of here."

There's a staircase down the back, and Gale knows for a fact that they've forbidden the press from going back there. Something about needing a medical exit or a fire exit, Gale wasn't really paying attention.

They reach the edge of the wall of Victors, and Gale is anticipating an early night wrapped around Madge, which might keep the nightmares he knows are just waiting to edge in at bay, when she stops, her eyes brightening.

Her delicate fingers reach out and almost touch the face of a boy staring out at her from the wall, but before her finger hit the thin plane separating the picture from her skin Gale grabs her wrist.

"Don't," he warns her before flicking his free hand at the photo.

A zap of electricity snaps in the air as his finger tries to hit the frame.

"To keep anyone from stealing them," Gale explains as she takes his hand and examines it for damage.

It's fine, he knows that, he knows exactly how long skin can be in contact with the 'webbing' protecting the memorial, but he lets her fuss over him anyways. It's a strange sort of comfort, having her worry over him, and he eats it up.

Once she's happy he hasn't cooked his fingers, she lets go and smiles sadly over at the picture.

"He was handsome, wasn't he?"

Gale finally gives the picture his attention, and is unhappy to find a boy with olive skin and dark curly hair, carelessly smirking out at him.

To Gale, Haymitch Abernathy at sixteen is no more handsome than the middle-aged bastard Gale had last seen when he'd hoofed back to District Twelve years before, leaving Gale and so many others to finish rebuilding the country. He keeps that thought to himself though and settles on a noncommittal grunt.

Madge's eyes linger on the boy in the picture for a few seconds longer before her smile brightens and she turns to Gale and takes his hand.

"I think it's nice," she says, her voice strangely thick. "To let them be as they were, not what they had to become. It isn't giving them back what they lost, but it's-it acknowledges that they weren't what they became, if that makes any sense."

It does and it doesn't. They were who they became in part because of the Capitol, but maybe some of them were like him, rotten and only needing the opportunity to show their colors. There's no way to see which are which, and Gale supposed that may be a blessing. They'll forever be innocent, even if they might not have been.

Her lips press together then unpress several times before she sighs and let's her eyes drop, focus on her fingers twining with Gale's.

Wrapping his arm around Madge, Gale kisses her hair again as he steers her toward the exit.

"I understand," he whispers into her ear, causing her to shiver against him.

The wall of 'winners' isn't perfect, but it's a step in the right direction. Not using their Victory photos, but instead their pitiful ones from school, letting them be seen and remembered as the children they should've been can only help to open more eyes to just how terrible the Hunger Games were. Maybe seeing the seemingly innocent faces of the Victors will encourage the people of the Capitol to look at the Games a little more closely, and that might help when Gale tries to get the names and faces of the other children, Tributes that hadn't survived their Games, memorialized.

With one last glance over his shoulder, Gale lets his eyes flicker over so many of the faces that have haunted his nights, noting the missing ones, and sighing as she steers Madge towards the steps.

It isn't perfect, but it's a baby step in the right direction, to helping others see things as they should be, and not as they were presented to them.

If their faces open even a few eyes, like they had his, then he'll take it.


	55. Big Boy Stuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> AN: So most of the stuff I've written lately has been pretty sad, so this is my apology for that. It's short and silly, really silly, but hopefully it makes you smile. Be warned, it's an adultish topic, but handled in my normal, ridiculous way.

Vick is too absorbed in studying a maneuver he'd been discussing with one of the midwives he's working with this rotation and doesn't hear the plop-plop of bare little feet sneaking up on him.

"What're they doing to that baby?" A small voice asks, almost making him jump out of his skin.

Turning, he finds Glen, wide gray eyes focused on the colorful, and painfully detailed, picture at the top of his textbook's page.

He tries to snap it shut, but Glen already has a sticky palm on it as he pulls himself into Vick's lap.

Before Vick can think to stop him, Glen has flipped a page, this time to a diagram of mammary glands. His eyebrows rise and he gives his uncle a small look and a deep sigh.

"Tha's a dirty picture, Uncle Vick." His eyebrows disappear into his dark hair. "Does Grammy know you look at this?'

"Uh, yes?"

Though he doesn't exactly go to her to discuss what he's learning. There has to be a barrier, and that's it for him.

"Glen, this is school stuff," he tries to explain.

His nephew fixes him a disbelieving look.

"I don't see any tracing letters," he tells him, as though that exposes some great lie.

"I already learned how to write, Glen," Vick mutters. "This is big boy stuff."

"Imma big boy!" Glen tells him excitedly.

Oh, shit.

Flipping through the pages, excited to be included in such advanced learning, Glen starts trying to use his minimal grasp of sounds and letters to work out random words on the page.

"Va-va-g-een-ay," he triumphantly tells Vick, turning to him and smiling broadly. It slips off after a second. "Uncle Vick, what's a va-g-een-ay?"

Vick blanks. He's pretty sure Gale doesn't want him explaining the finer points of female anatomy to his preschooler, even if Vick is highly qualified and much more qualified to do so than Gale himself.

"Uh, well, see…Okay, well, uh…"

As Glen stares up at him expectantly, Vick starts to sweat and wonder why he couldn't have decided to specialize in pathology instead.

Somehow summoned by Vick's mounting panic, Rory strolls in from outside, covered in grease from head to toe and tracking it along the tile of their mother's kitchen floor.

He stops as soon as he sees Glen on Vick's lap, a little grin ticking up at the corners of his mouth. He smells blood in the water, and he's going in for the kill.

"Glen! My favorite nephew!" He starts toward the table and Vick takes the opportunity, Glen has reached out for Rory, to flip the book shut. Hopefully his idiot brother will provide enough of a distraction that Glen will forget all about the unmentionable things he's seen in Vick's Big Book of Obstetrics.

Swooping in, like an obnoxious, smelly vulture, Rory scoops Glen up and settles him on his hip.

"What are you and my sweet baby brother up to?"

Vick tries to answer, put it in Glen's head that they were about to make cookies, that's a sure bet to get his mind off of Vick's studies, but terror has slowed his mouth.

"I'm learning about big boy stuff. Like Va-gee-nays."

For a second Rory is stumped, but then his eyes cut down the book, still stupidly sitting on the table, half hidden under Vick's elbow, and his eyes light up.

"Oh, I see."

I'll bet you do.

"Rory…" Vick gives him a warning look.

"Are you going to be a lady-doctor like Uncle Vick?"

Glen's nose wrinkles up and he looks at Vick, frowning. He studies him for a minute, apparently working something out in his little mind, before turning back to Rory and crossing his arms over his chest. "Uncle Vick is a boy."

Rory snickers. "Yeah, but he doctors lady bits."

Shaking his head, Vick mouths the words 'no, Rory', but he just grins back. Clearly, he's intent on being murdered by their oldest brother.

Fine, if Rory wants to die, painfully mangled by Gale for explaining the facts of life to his son, so be it. Vick isn't interested. He's put too much time and effort into his schooling to die this close to being out, especially over something so ridiculous.

"Uncle Vick bandages va-gee-nays."

"You don't bandage va-ge-vaginas, Rory," Vick grumbles before he realizes he's being bated, dragged into the pit of doom right alongside him. Damn it.

"What do you do to them?" Glen asks, suddenly, horribly, interested.

"Yeah, Vick," Rory pulls out the seat next to him and drops down, settling Glen more comfortably on his leg and fixing Vick in a deeply fascinated look. "What do you do to them?"

They're both going to be murdered

Feeling suddenly faint, Vick takes a long breath.

"I fix them."

It takes roughly half a second for him to realize how stupid that sounds, not to mention wholly inaccurate, not even close to all the things he does, and just under that for Glen to start firing off questions.

"Why do they need fixed? Do they get broken? How do they break them?" He draws in a long breath, his eyes dropping from Vick's face to the book, still hiding shamefully under Vick's elbow. "Do they break 'cause they put babies in them? Why would you put a baby in them? That's stupid."

Frozen in horror, Vick just stares at Glen. What is he supposed to say?

He suddenly wonders how Gale didn't die of embarrassment when Vick had started asking these kind of questions.

"Well," he starts slowly, trying to explain the wonders of birth and the female body without getting his chances to procreate cut to zero by his irate brother, "that's how babies get out of their mommies tummies."

There, safe and vague. Gale can take it from there, the joy of fatherhood.

"Nu-uh, mommy said they cutted me outta her tummy," he tells Vick, lifting his shirt and exposing his own stomach, pointing to where Madge's c-section scar would be. "She has a scar right there, and that's how they got 'Vanna out too."

He sits back on Rory, crossing his arms and waiting for Vick's explanation, thinking he's caught him in a fib.

"Um," Vick frowns, his eyebrows knitting together.

"You," Rory suddenly chimes in, poking a finger into Glen's stomach, "had such an enormous head when you were born, they had no choice but to cut you out."

For a second Glen just stares at him, thinking it over, then he nods, perfectly serious. "'Cause I have a big brain."

Rory barely manages to cover his laugh with a cough.

"Yeah, 'cause of your big brain," Vick agrees, nodding his agreement. Whatever makes him happy.

A light suddenly comes on in Glen's eyes. "If my brains wasn't so big, I'd've come'd out through my momma's va-gee-nay?"

He isn't finished yet, but he waits for Vick to confirm his breakthrough before continuing.

"Yes?" He smiles uncertainly, glancing to Rory to see if he knows where this is heading, but he looks just as clueless as Vick.

Glen's smile widens. "And that's how girlses vageenays break!"

He's figured it out, and he's just so proud of himself that Vick can't help but smile back and nod. There's no reason to elaborate on tears and episiotomies, rips and lacerations, the fact that it isn't actually broken, that kind of thing is best discussed with Rory far, far, away.

Putting his hands to his head, Glen looks at Vick in wonder. "Momma was lucky."

Rory nods, patting Glen's knee. "Yep. You should warn your dad. He needs to know the danger he's putting your sweet mother in."

Vick's mouth drops. Rory is a dead man. His affairs had better be in order. He's just asking for trouble, telling Glen that kind of thing.

At the same time, Vick dearly hopes the topic comes up at dinner. Gale's face will be priceless.

Nodding somberly, Glen sighs, the weight of such an important task clearly on his mind.

In the front of the house, Savanna squeals and Vick feels suddenly sick. Gale has come for his children.

Feeling the sudden, inescapable need for fresh air, Vick grabs his book and shoves it in his bag, standing just as Glen jumps from Rory's leg and races to the tall figure emerging from the hallways.

"Daddy!" He launches himself at Gale's leg.

"Hey, buddy." Gale ruffles Glen's hair and smiles. The sap doesn't know the mini-disaster Rory has sent into his waiting arms. "Have you been good for Grammy?"

Glen nods. "I helped her with 'Vanna."

Vick squints at the mismatched socks and lopsided pigtails his niece is sporting and nods. He certainly had helped her.

"And now I'm learning big boy stuff with Uncle Vick and Uncle Rory," he tells him proudly.

Vick starts edging toward the door.

"Oh?" Gale looks to his brothers, already suspicious. His eyes drop back to Glen, smiling tensely. "What's 'big boy' stuff?"

Just as Vick gets his hand on the door handle, he hears Glen triumphantly tell Gale, "Va-gee-nays!"

Unable to do the smart thing and exit, Vick turns, grimacing.

"Va-what?" He looks up at Vick, then to Rory, his expression already certain he isn't going to like whatever new thing his son has learned.

"Girl bits, daddy," Glen sighs, dropping his arms in exasperation. "Like mommy has. You need to be careful. You might break hers."

Gale's eyebrows pull together. "Break Madge's-"

He stops cold, a look of sudden comprehension on his face.

"Yeah, Gale," Rory cuts in, taking a step back towards Vick. "Let's face it, you've been trying to break if for years."

Opening the door, Vick almost falls out, shouting that he has a study group to get to.

He doesn't, but if he doesn't see the murder that's about to occur in his mother's kitchen, then he can deny knowledge of it.

Flinging his bag in the backseat, he hears yelling coming from inside the house and he sighs.

Maybe he can just sleep in the on-call room for the night.


	56. Rainy days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.

Madge sit in the front window of Poppa's shop, watching the rain drizzle down, trickling off the ragged edges of the faded red and white striped awning.

Sighing, she sees her breath fog the glass, obscuring the scene outside.

She wishes the sun would come out and dry up the ground. Poppa had promised to help her pick the okra and fry it up, and they can't do that in the rain. At least not according to him.

Pushing herself up, she leaves the window, goes past the glass display, letting her little fingers trace along the front, leaving a thin smear she'll have to come back and clean off later.

Poppa is in the back, dipping the chilled berries they'd bought from the man with the little boy the weekend before. They're lumpy looking, dark purple, stain her fingers, but she likes them anyways.

Reaching over the edge of the table, she snatches one up and pops it in her mouth. When Poppa doesn't notice, she does it again, then again.

"You'll get a tummy ache if you eat too many, love," he tells her, the edges of his lips twitching up and his eyes flickering to her over the top of his glasses. "You're as bad as Haymitch, eating all my hard work."

Wrinkling her nose, Madge glares at him. She isn't as bad as Mr. Abernathy.

"And just as messy," Poppa adds, reaching out and tapping the end of her nose, leaving a dot of chocolate on it.

Scowling, Madge starts to wipe her nose, but stops when she hears a little knock on the back door.

Forgetting her nose, Madge runs to it, her sticky hand reaching for the doorknob before Poppa's laughter stops her.

"Eager to see your little friend?" He asks, wiping his hands on his apron, smearing chocolate and purple down the front.

Hand dropping down, Madge shakes her head sternly.

She isn't eager, especially not to see the man with the berries or his son. "He isn't my friend."

Poppa laughs again. "He might be, if you didn't hide from him everytime he comes by."

Madge frowns up at him. She doesn't hide, she just doesn't always get out from behind Poppa's legs. Besides the boy is tall and has a grumpy face, she's pretty sure he doesn't want to see her.

Patting her head, Poppa pulls her gently from the door before reaching over her and opening it.

The man is there, just like every Sunday, his gray eyes twinkling as he smiles at Poppa.

He's sopping wet, water trickling down over the edge of his cap, dripping onto the collar of his drab shirt and leather jacket. There's mud on his boots, and Madge can see splatters of something she's horribly certain is blood, which makes no sense to her. The berry man is one of the nicest people she's ever met, even if his son is a little cranky.

Beside him, with his cap pulled low on his face, is his son.

He's only slightly less wet than his dad, but he's every bit as muddy. Little leaves and bits of grass are stuck to his pants, which are soaked up to his knees, and rain is clinging to the wild bits of hair sticking out from under his cap, dripping when he tilts his head up to look at his dad.

"Herschel," the man says with a wet grin, "nice weather, huh?"

Poppa smiles warmly, patting Madge on the head again. "Oh, I don't mind it, but Madge was a little disappointed. We'd planned a day in the garden and this storm has ruined our plans."

The man's grin widens and he leans down, hands to his knees, to Madge's level. "Staying dry, little lady?"

Madge turns and buries her face into Poppa's thigh, nodding.

"Still not talking, huh?" He asks, a little chuckle in his voice as he straightens up, popping his back as he does.

Peaking out, Madge looks up at him and the boy.

"We found strawberries," he says, nodding down to his son.

The boy holds out a soggy looking brown drawstring sack, stained with watery pink at the bottom.

Clapping his hands together, Poppa laughs in delight. "Wonderful!" He takes the sack, opening it and peaking inside before smiling brightly at the boy. "Madge loves strawberries."

Looking to Madge, the boy's nose scrunches up. "Oh."

"You could try selling up at the Victors' Village too, if you have extra," he tells them as he walks away to put the sack on the table. "Haymitch is particularly fond of them."

Nodding, the man's eyes follow Poppa as he goes to the front of the store to get the money for the strawberries.

His gaze travels back, dropping down to Madge still standing awkwardly in front of him.

Immediately, her eyes fall, down to the puddle forming at his and his son's feet, growing larger as the seconds tick by.

"Helping your granddad?"

Eyes still on the ground, Madge nods.

Something rough and warm is suddenly in her face, on her nose, wiping at the chocolate from the tip. She instantly pulls back, making a face as she does.

A deep chuckle fills the air.

"You got a little messy there."

Glancing up through her bangs, Madge shakes her head and rubs the last of the chocolate from her nose. "Poppa did it."

Looking at the boy, Madge finds him watching her curiously for a moment before his eyes jerk away, over her shoulder to the table.

Madge suddenly feels her cheeks burning.

He's from the Seam, the only chocolate he's probably ever had was from her, when Poppa had let her take him some for getting her ball back.

"Can I Poppa?" She'd asked softly, pointing at the work table and the fudge spread out on it, after the boy had disappeared with his dad.

She'd felt bad for not speaking up, not speaking clearly, and she'd had the sudden urge to do something.

It had been Madge's favorite fudge, thick with chunks of pecans in it, and they'd only just made it. Poppa had tossed several of the freshly cut squares into a bag and pressed it into Madge's hand, gently pushing her out the door and after the boy.

"No backing out now, love. He deserves a proper thank you," Poppa reminded her when she'd hesitated.

Running after him, she'd blundered again, shoving the treat at him and not even waiting for him to see what she'd given him.

Now he's wet and filthy, waiting on Poppa in a room filled with the scent of chocolate and taffy.

Belatedly, Madge realizes her lips are probably stained purple from the berries she'd been eating. A taunt she hadn't even known she was doing.

Biting her lip, Madge turns and, almost tripping over her clumsy feet, runs to the table.

She scoops off several berries, letting them fall off the table and into her tiny hand before running back to the man and boy.

Holding her hand out, she offers them some.

The boy's eyebrows pull together, staring uncertainly at her for a second, then his dad reaches out.

Big fingers quickly snatch up a few chocolate covered berries, tossing them gently into the air and catching them in his open palm with a smile. "I guess you taste tested them?"

Madge nods, forcing her eyes to stay on him and trying to smile. It only comes out as a strange little quirk of half her face, she's sure, but it was a try.

Taking his big hand to his mouth, the man tosses a couple of berries in, eating them silently. His mouth splits open, revealing purple stained teeth. "Not bad."

A little giggle spills out, up from Madge's stomach and out past her lips, and she smiles up at him, covering her own mouth with her free hand.

He gives her a little wink before running his tongue over his teeth, wiping away the purple. Mostly.

"Try some, Gale."

At his dad's prompting, the boy presses his lips into a line, apparently readying himself for something unpleasant before taking a few chocolate bits from Madge's still outstretched hand.

Slowly, he pops one into his mouth, chewing carefully.

After a second, he shoves the rest of what he'd taken into his mouth.

"Good, huh?" His dad asks, smiling knowingly down at his son.

Poppa finally comes back in, a little satchel of coins in his weathered hand.

"I hope that's enough, Asher," he says, holding it out to him.

"Probably too much." The man raises a berry, pinched carefully between his fingers. "Your granddaughter is giving out your product."

Shrugging, Poppa laughs. "I could never sell all of them anyways. Enjoy yourself. Take some for the kids."

It's partly true. Poppa make more candy than he could ever sell, mostly because the Capitol gives him a ration of supplies, and if he doesn't use them, or tries to give them out as anything other than candy, he'll be punished. It's some kind of game to the people in charge. Wasting food rather than letting starving people have full bellies for a night.

He isn't supposed to give out his finished product either, but he accounts for it by having pesky mice and a good relationship with the Head Peacekeeper, a man with a love of smooth fudge and divinity. Those are the only things standing between Poppa and a jail cell, at least according to her daddy.

Before the man can protest, Poppa is at the table, filling a small paper bag with chocolate covered berries.

"Herschel, I can't." The man shakes his head, holding up his hands and refusing the bag.

"Of course you can," Poppa laughs, giving Madge's ponytail a tug. "Madge insists."

Madge, rather than nodding, just gapes up at the man, wondering if he'll get mad.

She's seen it happen. People from the Seam have a funny way about them, getting loud and snappy if they feel insulted. Getting free food, Madge has slowly discovered, is definitely insulting to them.

Her eyes drop to the boy. He's scowling, arms crossed over his chest and his eyes focused on the bag, almost daring it to force its way into his dad's hands.

He must feel her staring, because his eyes are suddenly on her, stormy and gray, unhappy at being wet and dirty and offered sweets.

Madge feels her face begin to burn and she focuses her gaze down, on his dirty boots instead of his cranky face.

"Well, if Madge insists," the man's deep voice rumbles over her.

Looking up, Madge watches his rough hand take the bag from Poppa and carefully place it in a loop, on the strap of the bag he has slung around his shoulder.

"A pleasure, as always, Herschel." Turning, the man reaches out, tapping the end of Madge's nose. "Stop being so loud, okay?"

For a second Madge doesn't understand. Had she been noisy? She'd thought she'd been quiet, wasn't that what Poppa and her parents were always telling her? She was too quiet?

"You must be part mouse," Mr. Abernathy had told her once, when she'd spent an entire afternoon coloring while he and her father had talked about boring things. "Make a little noise, sweetheart."

When the man smiles, giving her a small wink, she understands.

He's teasing her, and for some reason, that makes her cheeks burn hotter.

"Tell them bye, Gale."

Cheek twitching up, the boy grunts a halfhearted 'bye', his eyes dragging off of Madge, before trudging out, following his dad out the door and into the rain.

"So you were giving your little boyfriend candy?" Poppa asks, pushing his glasses up his nose and smiling brightly down at her once they're gone and the door is snapped shut.

Madge turns her back on him, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at the door.

That grumpy boy isn't her friend, and he definitely isn't her boyfriend. Poppa is ridiculous sometimes.

He pinches her cheek. "Oh, love." With a little chuckle he scoops her up and carries her to the table, setting her down on one of the stools. "The two of you could sell chocolate covered berries together."

"Poppa..."

"He could go out and get the berries and you'd dip them. It would be quite the team."

"Poppa..."

"One of you will have to learn to speak though."

"Poppa..." Madge throws herself across the table in exasperation. He's being silly again. "He isn't my boyfriend."

Kissing her head, he chuckles again.

"He likes you."

"Nuh-uh," she huffs, sitting up and glaring at him.

"He couldn't take his eyes off you," he tells her, his smile widening. Reaching out, he smoothes her hair. "And who could blame him? You're as beautiful as your mother."

Rolling her eyes, Madge picks up a berry and studies it, wondering if the boy will like them as much as she does.

Probably not, he is a little cranky.

#######

Gale races ahead of his dad, jumping into a puddle and sending muddy water flying out, splattering messily against the back wall of the tailor's shop.

"Gale," he hears his dad warn him.

Grinning, Gale stops and turns, trying and failing to look apologetic.

"We're messy enough without you trying to swim out here," he tells him when he catches up. "Get under my coat. Don't want you catching a cold."

Nodding, Gale lets him tuck him under his side in a half effective attempt to keep the rain off his head.

"You're going to have to share your candy with you mother and Rory, you know?"

"Yeah," Gale nods. "I know."

They make their way home after that in silence, which bodes ominous to Gale. His dad is a talker. Quiet isn't good.

When they get home, kicking off their muddy boots and shrugging off their sopping wet coats, Gale goes to the table and grins, handing his mom the game bag.

"My snares caught two rabbits," he tells her proudly.

His mom smiles, taking his face in her hands and pressing a kiss to his forehead. "Very good, sweetie."

Hopping onto his seat, Gale beams. He's providing for the family. Soon enough, he'll be able to go into the woods while his dad is in the mines. That'll be an even bigger help.

With a groan, his dad drops into his normal chair, tossing the paper bag onto the table gently. "Look what else he managed to get."

Crossing his arms on the table, Gale buries his face. This is why his dad had been quiet. He'd been saving up to embarrass Gale with his mother.

"Chocolates?" He hears his mother say. "How did Gale get these?"

"His girlfriend gave them to him-"

"She isn't my girlfriend," Gale grumbles, cutting him off, not even looking up. He can feel his face warming. She isn't his anything. She's a weird little girl that can't talk. "And her granddad gave us the candy."

"Technicality," his dad laughs. "Gale couldn't take his eyes off her."

Rolling his eyes, Gale finally looks up. "She had stuff all over her face."

She's messy. Everytime they come by she's got something on her face.

"He kept making her blush."

Looking to his mother, Gale hopes she'll put a stop to his dad's nonsense, but she's smiling softly, her mouth half covered with her hand. She thinks this is funny.

"They could go into business together," his dad starts up again. "Gale can get the berries and his little candy girl can chocolate coat them." He gives Gale a little grin. "Beats being a miner, trust me."

While Gale doesn't doubt that, he isn't sure candy making would fit him.

Even if the candy man's granddaughter is kind of pretty and her candy is good, she's still weird.


	57. Shared Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.

Gale sighs as he eases into the wooden rocker, Savanna cradled carefully in his arms, sobs replaced by little hiccups as she continues to calm down.

They'd gotten lucky with Glen. He was an easy baby, never fussy or demanding, quick to sooth, and generally happy, which Gale's mother attributes mostly to Madge.

"You had colic," she'd told him.

Gale had only nodded. So had Rory and Posy, he remembers it distinctly. He can't even remember how many school days he'd gone to exhausted from staying up listening to his younger siblings crying for long hours during the nights, nothing helping to console them.

"Vick was the only one that didn't," she'd added.

That had gotten a roll of his eyes. Of course Vick hadn't. He's her only even tempered child, of course he'd been the only one of her babies to not steel her sleep for months on end.

The only explanation then, had been that Glen's good nature was inherited from his mother, something Madge wasn't so sure about.

"My mother never really talked about what I was like as a baby, and my dad wouldn't have told me even if I was a high holy terror," she'd joked. "Mrs. Oberst claimed I was a brat though."

Gale hadn't put much stock in her old family housekeeper, though he really wouldn't like to get all the credit for their daughter's late night fussiness and her generally less pleasant disposition during that time.

He knows he should share his late night duties with Madge, but worry over not having time with her when he goes back to work makes him hypersensitive to every sound she makes.

All Gale's free time is spent acquainting himself with his daughter. Madge and Glen will have her all to themselves during the day, and Gale is a little jealous. Work will eat up too much of his time, keep him from getting to know her as well as they do. Their late nights are all he's going to have, but they exhaust him, so much that he falls asleep several times while reading Glen his bedtime story several times a week before he asks Madge to simply take over his nights too.

When Glen was born Gale had taken extra weeks off. Anxiety had made work too much stress.

Were they doing everything right? Was he developing normally? Would they know if he wasn't?

"You'll be more at peace with the next one," his mother had told him. "Firsts always get all the trial and error."

While that seems more or less true, he isn't nearly as jumpy with Savanna, he isn't anywhere near peace. The same worries that plague him with Glen, even though he's older now, hover over Savanna. The only difference is, Glen can tell him if something is wrong, he has a little personality that Gale feels like he knows as well as his own. Savanna, even with her fussiness, isn't formed yet. Gale barely feels like he knows her, and that terrifies him.

He needs more time with her before he goes back to work, that's all there is to it.

Smoothing her hair, he smiles down at her, now calm and snoozing against his chest.

She's not a bad baby, even if she demands more attention than her brother did. That's a good thing in Gale's opinion. No one is going to push her around and she is going to make herself known, whether anyone likes it or not, which he sees as a positive.

Rocking back and forth, he starts to hum a song to her, stopping dead when he realizes it's 'The Hanging Tree'.

Not appropriate, he thinks to himself, shaking his head and deciding the creaking of the chair is enough noise for now.

Slowly, his eyelids begin to get heavy, dropping closed against his will despite his efforts to keep them propped up and before he knows it, he's asleep.

It's only been ten, maybe fifteen minutes, when he feels a little hand on his forearm, patting it softly.

Suddenly, he isn't in Two, safe with his wife and kids, but in Twelve, in his family's crumbling home, fourteen years old, cold and hungry and destined for the mines. He isn't rocking Savanna, but Posy, and the small, dark haired boy trying to wake him isn't Glen, but Vick.

Heart racing, he blinks several times, reminding himself that's all in the past. He's safe now, they're all safe now.

Finally, Glen's little voice pulls him back into the moment.

"Daddy," he whispers, breaking the silence of the room. "Daddy."

Gale jerks, his mind instantly telling him he's dropping the baby, quickly pulling her tighter against him, waking her up.

A loud wail fills the room, forcing all lingering sleepiness from Gale's head.

"Glen," he hisses, "what?"

He doesn't even wait for a response, just instantly starts rocking again, trying to quiet the baby again.

Looking up at him with wide eyes, filled with moonlight and tears, Glen steps back, lower lip quivering.

"I jus' didn't wan' you't drop the baby," he mumbles between sniffles. "I'm sorry."

Biting his tongue, Gale lets out a long breath, trying to ease his now frazzled nerves. "It's okay, buddy. Just," he forces a smile, "got back to bed, alright? I won't drop her."

They'd have been just fine, might even have gotten half a night's sleep if Gale hadn't just had ten years shaved off his life by a stealthy toddler.

Sniffling again, Glen nods, his feet making a loud scraping noise as he shuffles across the floor and back to the door. With one last tearful look, he glances back at Gale and Savanna before his noisily heading back across the hall.

Sitting back, Gale curses himself. He'd only been trying to help, there'd been no reason to snap at him.

Glen has been fascinated with Savanna since before she was even born.

He's talked to her, sang to her, attempted to help feed her once or twice, and her walls are covered in roughly drawn pictures of suns and flowers and animals, all created by Glen to make her room more pleasant.

It had only been out of concern that he'd woken Gale up, nothing more.

He'll make it up to him in the morning, Gale thinks drowsily, letting his head drop back against the little cushion his mother had sewn for them back when Glen had been newborn.

In the morning he'll make him pancakes or waffles then take him for ice cream. That'll make him happy.

#######

All thoughts of breakfast and afternoon snacks are forgotten when Madge comes in that morning, plucking the baby up and hurrying off.

"She has a doctor's appointment, Gale, remember?" She chides him as she picks up the dress Posy had bought months prior and begins dressing Savanna.

Sitting forward, elbows to knees, Gale groans. He had forgotten.

"I'll go get ready," he tells her, standing up and popping his back, stiff from the night in the chair.

Turning, Madge shoots him a look. "I thought you were taking Glen fishing?"

Halfway to the door, Gale frowns, racking his mind for that detail.

Had he? He doesn't remember, if he's being honest with himself, but he might have. He has been a little distracted since Savanna was born.

Panic sets in as he imagines himself out with Glen, fishing, while his wife and tiny baby daughter try to traverse the District Seat on a bus or, just as bad, riding with Rory, the only person that would have the day off. What kind of dad and husband subjects his family to that?

"We can go another day," he tells her, taking a deep breath. "I can't let you go by yourself."

Picking Savanna up from the changing table, now clad in yellow and white, Madge comes over, giving him a small smile.

"Gale, you promised him you'd take him, and you've already cancelled on him once."

Cringing, Gale runs a hand through his hair. He had already promised Glen to take him out shooting a bow only a few days before, but had to change it to fishing when Savanna had gotten the sniffles.

Memories of babies dying from simple colds, sometimes several a year, had made going hunting impractical and stupid. He had needed to be with his sick baby, there was no getting around that.

Glen had never been sick, not once in his first year of life, though he'd caught a nasty couple of colds since then. Savanna's illness had put him on edge, even if it turned out to be only minor.

When he'd told Glen about it, he'd been understanding, much more than Gale would've been at that age.

"Is okay daddy," he told him, patting his hand. "We can go 'nother day."

They'd decided on fishing, which now seems on the verge of being passed over as well.

"I'll take him out for ice cream later," he tells her, "and we can go fishing tomorrow."

Madge shakes her head. "It's supposed to rain tomorrow."

"Then the next day." Or however many days it takes for the sun to reappear. Gale isn't about to let her and the baby go to the doctor by themselves. "Don't worry about it."

Without waiting for a response, he takes off.

Glen will understand, he's a good kid, and his love for his sister and mother's welfare will make him see Gale needs to go.

#######

Just like Gale had thought, Glen agrees that it's best for his dad to go with Madge and Savanna.

"Is okay daddy," he tells him, even though he's already up and dressed, the buttons on his favorite fishing shirt askew and his shoes on the wrong feet. "You hafta make sure 'Vanna is okay with mommy."

They dropped him off with his Grammy, Gale promising to take him fishing and hunting just as soon as the sun comes out and that Glen will be allowed to try daddy's big bow even.

The dreary and rainy days stretch on, first one week, then two, and slowly the promise slips from Gale's mind.

Finally, he gets up to get ready for work, his first day back since Savanna was born, and the sky is clear and blue, not a cloud on the horizon.

Without disturbing Madge, he cleans up, gets dressed, then sneaks into the baby's room.

She's asleep, only having woken up once during the night which Madge had tried to quiet.

"You need your sleep, Gale," she yawned. "You always get her, I can do it."

He'd pulled her back into the bed, kissing her soundly.

"You're going to have her all to yourself soon enough. Let me take care of her during the night." Even if it means being dead tired the next day.

Thankfully, she calmed quickly and Gale hadn't lost much sleep, and he hopes it's a new trend.

Smiling to himself, Gale leans over the crib and kisses her dark hair. "See you when I get home, princess."

Walking into the hall, Gale peaks into Glen's room.

The floor is a mess, toys strewn everywhere and clothes tossed haphazardly around, causing Gale to frown as he steps in.

Glen is gone, his comforter and sheets thrown to the floor in a heap and his pillow inexplicably across the room.

"Glen?"

When he doesn't answer, Gale's eyebrows pull together and he goes down the hall, the stairs, and into the kitchen.

Sitting at the table, once again dressed in his favorite outing clothes, legs swinging under the chair as he munches happily on an apple, is Glen.

For a second Gale just stares at him from the entryway, trying to piece together just what he's seeing, then Glen notices him and grins.

"Ready, daddy?"

The air instantly leaves Gale's lungs. Their trip.

Groaning, Gale runs his hands over his face, up into his hair, tugging it up wildly. "I'm so sorry, bud." He walks over and drops into the chair opposite Glen. "I go back to work today."

The little smile, so bright and excited, slowly slips from Glen's face. "Work? But you supposed to be off for the baby."

Gale nods. "My time off is over." He forces a smile. "We can go this weekend, okay?"

Eyes dropping down to his lap, Glen nods, answers softly. "Okay."

Reaching out, Gale ruffles his hair. "Hey, I promise. You and me, we'll get dinner for mommy, alright?"

When that doesn't perk him up, Gale tips his chin up gently, smiling and hoping for his happy child to reappear.

"Maybe I'll start teaching you to clean the fish. How does that sound?"

Lips twitching, Glen slowly lets a smile slide back onto his face. "With you special knife?"

Gale nods. They'll have to keep it a secret from Madge, but he will teach Glen to gut and clean, even use his specially made knife if it'll make him happy.

Jumping from the chair, Glen throws his arms around Gale's neck. "Okay."

#######

He's too tired the next weekend from waking up with Savanna to do much of anything but sleep and rock her.

"Maybe next Saturday," he tells Glen, who nods sadly and stays close to Madge, helping her make ice cream, plant, fold laundry, and generally just avoid Gale.

It stings, but Gale mentally tells himself he'll make it up to him, soon.

The weekend after that it rains again, and Gale's many broken promises to Glen fade from his memory, only to be brought up by Madge before they go to bed one Friday when she tells him she'll get up with the baby during the night so that he has plenty of energy the next day.

"I know you love Savanna and you want to spend time with her, but Glen still needs you," she reminds him. "You can't keep forgetting about him. Just because he doesn't act upset, doesn't mean he isn't. I told him you'd take him tomorrow."

Grumbling, Gale nods. He knows Glen is hurt, and he hates that. The last thing he wants is to do is make his little boy upset. He needs time with his little girl though, she's new, small, needy, and Glen understands that.

When Savanna's nightly cry time comes around, he expects to hear her sharp wails coming from down the hall. It's the right time for it after all and his body is adjusted to waking for it. No cry comes though.

Rolling over, he sees Madge, still sleeping soundly.

Stomach lurching, he gets up and heads down the hall.

When he gets to the doorway of Savanna's room he freezes.

On the floor beside the crib is a pile of Glen's blankets, wadded up and lumped in a sort of pallet.

Eyes rising, Gale looks in the crib and finds not just Savanna, soundly sleeping, but also Glen, one arm stretched up, head resting on it, and the other draped over his baby sister.

For a moment Gale just stares at the scene, trying to work out just what happened, before he cuts across the room and leans over the side of the rail.

Reaching down, he brushes a finger over Savanna's cheek before smoothing out Glen's wild hair. "Glen, buddy."

"Daddy," Glen mumbles sleepily, rubbing his eyes and nose. "What're you doin'?"

Gale laughs. "Checking on you and your sister. Why are you in the crib?"

"I'm keeping 'Vanna from waking up," Glen explains.

"You know that's me and mommy's job, right?" Gale asks, watching Glen carefully set up.

"I know," he says, looking down and toying with the edge of his blanket sadly. "But she always cries 'cause she's scared and you won't let mommy help and I wan' you to sleep a'night so we can go fishin' in the morning and you not be tired."

A sharp pain shoots through Gale's chest.

He's let his little boy down.

Ever since Savanna was born, he's been so absorbed with getting to know his new child that he's been neglecting his all too patient oldest. His dismissals and rescheduling, like spending time with his son is a meeting he's trying to avoid, clearly stung Glen more than he'd let on. Enough to make him wake up in the middle of the night to fight off another complication, another excuse, to keep his dad from bailing on him again.

Running his hand over his face, Gale lets out a sigh, his gaze settling on Glen.

"I haven't been a very good daddy lately, have I buddy?"

Glen frowns, his eyes still focused on his blanket, shrugging. "You're busy, an' 'Vanna needs you more."

Smiling Gale nods. "She does, but you need me too."

And while Gale knows that, he had been ignoring it. He'd wanted to get to know his daughter, but trying to do that might slowly erode the special relationship he's built with his son.

Looking down at Savanna, resting so peacefully, Gale takes in a long breath.

She's only a few months old, he doesn't have to get to know her forwards and backwards right this minute. It had taken him all of Glen's life to get to know him, and he still surprises him.

There'll be years to map out his daughter's personality. Losing a few hours a day to keep the country from being the terrifying place it had been when he'd been small isn't going to stop him from having time with her. He's always managed to make time for Glen, he'll figure this out.

Smiling to himself, Gale wonders how his mother did it with four kids. At least Gale has Madge, his mother had lost his dad right before Posy. She'd juggled them all on her own, and Gale doesn't remember ever being starved for attention.

"Come here," Gale tells him, holding out his arms.

Hesitantly, Glen reaches out, letting Gale pull him from the crib.

Settling him on his hip, Gale kisses Glen's forehead. "Let's get you to bed. We have a lot of fish to catch in the morning. They've had it too good for too long, right?"

A tiny smile twitches on Glen's lips. "Promise?"

Gale nods. "Cross my heart." He shifts Glen, giving him a stern look. "Even if it rains."

He's put his son on the backburner for too long and he's going to make it up to him.

Looking down at the crib, Glen's lip puckers. "We can bring 'Vanna." He looks back at Gale. "She'll like that."

Chuckling, Gale reaches into the crib and pulls Glen's blanket out and wraps him in it.

"Maybe next time. Tomorrow it's just you and me. Mommy's gotten to hog you, I need to make up for that."

And a lot more it seems.

Gale smiles, tapping the end of his son's nose.

"You're a good big brother, you know that?"

Glen shrugs.

"I was jus' bein' like you," he tells him simply.

Gale doesn't remember being half as patient or gentle with his younger siblings, except for maybe Posy.

Kissing his son's hair, Gale hugs him closer.

He might not be doing the best at juggling parenting two kids at once, but he must be doing something right to have Glen be such a good kid.

Or if his own mother is to be believed, Madge's genes have struck again.

He doesn't want to give her all the credit though.


	58. A Debt Unpaid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too.
> 
> AN: Someone wanted more 'Possibilities of a Life' and someone wanted vacation. I think they wanted Glen and Savanna on the vacations too, so…here you go. I'll do better next time…maybe.

Gale watches as Savanna runs from the waves lapping at her tiny heels, squealing delightedly as flecks of sea foam catch her.

She chases the water as it retreats, shouting nonsensical gibberish at it in warning before it comes back in, beginning the game again.

A few minutes pass before she finally gets bored, dropping to her knees and clawing a wet shell from the sand and running to Gale.

"Da!" She holds the sun bleached shell out, practically under Gale's nose, for his inspection. "Loo!"

Smiling, he takes it and nods. "Very pretty, 'Vanna."

"Pri'y," she echoes, taking it back and tottering around him, depositing it in her mounting pile of 'pretties' from the beach.

Clapping, she grabs his hand and pulls him to the water, babbling as she does, clearly thinking she's giving him very important instructions as she points to random places and nods.

Before he can work out exactly what it is she's trying to explain to him, Glen comes racing up, nearly running headlong into Gale.

"Dad," he half gasps, grabbing Gale's free hand and tugging him the opposite direction, "come on! The boat's ready!"

Laughing, Gale tugs him back by the neck of his shirt, sending Glen toppling into Gale's middle. "Hold up. I gotta get 'Vanna."

Huffing, Glen straightens back out, glancing around to make sure no one had seen him falling over, before rushing over and grabbing Savanna's hand.

"Come on, 'Vanna, Reed's got the boat ready for you."

"Weed!" Savanna cheers, tripping over her feet as she tries to keep up with her brother.

Sighing, Gale scoops her up and motions for Glen to go ahead.

Not waiting to be told twice, Glen races off, kicking sand up in all directions in his wake.

Chuckling, Gale carries Savanna toward the dock where the little boat is waiting.

Feet echoing hollowly on the worn wood of the dock, toward the weathered boat at the end, Gale spots Glen animatedly announcing his arrival to Madge and two other figures.

Annie Cresta looks pretty much like Gale remembers from District Thirteen.

Dark haired, slight, and pretty, she's managed to wipe some of the fogginess from her eyes, but there's still something missing from her. There probably always will be.

Gale hadn't really known her in Thirteen, other than seeing her with Finnick, knowing that the other Victor had loved her. He hadn't felt the need to get to know her before they'd mounted their assault on the Capitol, and he hadn't wanted to get to know her after.

Finnick, who'd protected his family and Annie at every corner, had died, and Gale, who'd devised a bomb so terrible it killed hundreds, thousands, of innocent people, had lived. It wasn't right.

He hadn't been able to look her in the eye knowing that he should've been the one to die. She shouldn't have had to raise her son alone.

But she had, and done a good job of it, despite what anyone might've thought.

Madge had been the one to bring Annie into Gale's life, years ago, at one of the awful gala's Gale had always been 'encouraged' to attend.

She'd met Annie while attending a meeting about memorials earlier in the day, and the two had hit it off.

"She's really great, and she has ideas for the memorial that I think we can use," Madge had said. "I'd really like to get input from her. She's seen the worst the Capitol had to offer. I think it's only right she have a say in how things get remembered."

While Gale agreed, he had only grunted an acknowledgement. He didn't want to think about Annie Cresta or what she'd seen. It only made him remember Finnick and what Gale had seen.

"She'll be at the gala tonight," Madge brightly announced. "She seemed excited to see you. I guess I didn't realize you knew her."

Since Gale hadn't really known her, he'd purposefully avoided her for an entire evening, dodging her at every corner. She'd want to talk about Finnick, probably his last moments, and he didn't want to put those images in her mind. Finnick wouldn't want her to know how it had ended. Gale owed him not to put those images in her head.

"She really wants to see you, Gale, Why are you treating her like she's got the plague?" Madge's expression seemed to droop. "It's not because she's a little odd, is it?"

That would've been a much simpler answer, Gale had thought, and he'd almost said 'yes', but had stopped short when he remembered how odd Madge's own mom was.

There was a string of madness connecting Madge's mom and Annie Cresta, Gale couldn't deny that, and that strange tether is probably what drew Madge to Annie in the first place. It wouldn't be hard to see Matilda Undersee in Annie Cresta, and Gale was sure Madge had.

Sighing, Gale had shaken his head.

"I-I just-I saw Finnick-I was one of the last people to see him alive, and I don't want to have to tell her about it."

He didn't want to recount the death of a loved one to someone as fragile as Annie. He couldn't handle watching her break, knowing he was the cause.

Madge had taken his hand and smiled.

"I don't think that's what she wants to talk about."

Reluctantly, Gale had let Madge lead him to Annie.

Annie didn't asked about Finnick's death, she didn't asked about his last days, she didn't look at Gale like the monster he was. She just smiled and pulled him into a hug.

"I'm so happy to see you," she'd whispered before pulling back, still beaming, as if they'd been old friends. "Finnick liked you. He told me so."

Blame, yelling and crying would've been easier to take. Sweetness and praise weren't what Gale deserved.

"He told me that you'd make sure the Capitol never hurt anyone again, no matter what," she'd sighed. "And you did."

Gale hadn't been able to hold back after that.

"I'm sorry," his voice broke. "I-I'm sorry he died."

Annie's strange smile never faltered, even as her eyes shined. "I am too."

She'd invited him and Madge to her home after that, one of the last remaining houses in Four's Victors' Village, which Gale had hesitantly accepted.

The Village was right on the beach, the houses all lined up along a cobbled road, whitewashed with pale blue shutters in need of a paint job.

Annie's was the last house on the lane.

The yard was well maintained, trimmed up to the neighboring house's edge. There were mounds of flowers in front of the deck and more flowers spilling out of pots, both sitting on the porch and hanging from the edge of the roof.

Annie had been sitting in a weathered old rocking chair at the far edge of the porch, her eyes on the beach.

When she'd noticed Madge and Gale, she'd jumped up and ran to them, pulling them into hugs.

"I'm so glad you came," she told them. "We never get visitors."

Gale felt his insides lurch unpleasantly.

Turning, she'd shouted down to the beach. "Reed! Come back up!"

Seconds later, a little boy had come running up, his hair wet and plastered to his head.

He'd flung himself around Annie, beaming up at her, and Gale's stomach squirmed again.

He hadn't expected to meet Finnick's son, though really, he thinks he should've known it would happen.

Reed had been lanky, bright eyed, and bronzed skinned. If it weren't for his dark hair, clearly inherited from his mom, Gale could imagine him as a very young Finnick.

"Do you want to come see my boat?" He'd asked Gale, minutes after meeting him. "Uncle Ford helped me build it."

Without waiting for an answer, he'd pulled Gale to a small dock behind the house and excitedly shown Gale every part of his tiny boat.

"-and I've been out spearfishing with my uncle-not in this boat-but, uh, in his boat." He'd frowned at the little boat before shrugging. "Do you want to go see that boat?"

He'd reminded Gale a little of Vick, excitable, eager, and maybe a little lonely so Gale had nodded. "Maybe sometime. We should probably go check on your mom first though."

Reed had nodded in agreement before taking Gale up to the house again, up the back steps, and the rest of the afternoon had been spent drinking Annie's fresh made lemonade, eating salted caramel chunks, and talking about the memorial that was going to be built in Four.

Gale felt increasingly lousy for having tried to avoid Annie. Even if she'd wanted to hear about Finnick's last moments, it wasn't his place to keep it from her. She wasn't weak, and pretending she was seemed insulting.

Annie had survived more than most. She deserved better than to be avoided and shunted away.

After that, whenever they'd been in Four, they'd stopped by Annie's, and Gale got the impression that aside from her brother-in-law, he and Madge were some of the only people that spared them the time of day.

It frustrated Gale. Annie had first lost some of her sanity, and then her husband, all for the sake of the people of Four, and yet no one seemed to care.

Even with all she'd given up, all she'd suffered, Annie was just another relic to them. Tossed aside like Katniss and Mellark and all the other surviving Victors. They deserved better, but they'd never get it.

So Gale had made it his personal mission to make sure neither one of them felt forgotten by him.

He brought Reed candies from across the country, toys, even a funny hat from Ten that he'd been given by one of the Commissioners, and Annie...just wanted to talk to someone. He never turned down her calls when he was at work, though usually she called Madge, which Gale was more than a little grateful for.

He owed Finnick to keep an eye on his wife and son, even if it had to be at a distance.

When Glen was born, Annie and Reed had sent a pineapple, which Vick had ended up having to cut up for them. Then when Savanna came, they'd gifted them a coconut.

They hadn't bothered trying to crack that gift. It was still in the kitchen, a kind of bizarre conversation piece.

When they'd brought Glen to Four, just after he'd learned to walk, Reed had taken to him like an older brother.

He'd insisted on teaching him to swim, much to Madge's horror, shown him how to spear a fish, and half begged Gale to leave him for a weekend.

"Madge says no," Gale had told him, grateful his wife got to be the bad guy. "Maybe when he's older."

Gale doubts that Reed will want either Glen or Savanna staying around now that he's almost a teenager, but he's fond of them, that much is clear as he ruffles Glen's hair and laughs at whatever ridiculous thing he's saying..

"Get on Gale, and prepare to be amazed!" Reed shouts, hoisting his trident above his head and twirling it. "For I am Reed, tuna slayer!"

Savanna claps, squealing happily as Gale hands her off to Madge, already standing on the boat.

"I'm gonna spear a big, giant fish," Glen announces, leaning over the edge and squinting into the water, possibly expecting to see his prey swimming under his nose. "Then we'll cook it on the fire, right dad?"

Gale nods, side stepping a bucket of dirty deck water before taking Savanna back from Madge and plopping down on a bench against the cabin.

"Da, Da, loo!" Savanna slaps Gale several times in the face before pointing out at a pelican, perched on a post on the pier. "Bir'y!"

"Yeah, gorgeous, a birdy."

Madge drops down beside him, looking ill at ease and forcing a wary smile. Despite all the weeks of talk Glen has done about going on a fishing trip with Reed and Annie, Gale gets the impression she'd hoped it wouldn't happen.

"Sure you don't want to stay on dry land?" Gale asks, eying her pale skin carefully.

"And let my babies be towed into the middle of the ocean without me? No, Gale."

He almost laughs. She can't swim, and it apparently terrified of the water, there's less than nothing she could do if something did happen, but he gets the impression she'd be the first to dive in if either of her children went overboard.

"Do you need a bucket?" Annie asks, her gaze on the blue horizon, sounding only mildly concerned. "Ford keeps one in the cabin, if you need it."

Smiling weakly, she shakes her head, though Gale thinks she ought to take the offer.

Gale wraps an arm around her, hoping she doesn't get sick all over him, as he looks to the bow where Glen is chattering away to Reed.

They almost look like brothers, with their dark complexions and hair, and Gale tries to imagine what life would've been like if Finnick had lived. He and Annie might've had a dozen kids. Reed would be going out fishing with his own dad, his real brother and sister.

It's a life he'd never been given a chance at.

Shaking the thought off, it'll do no good, Gale pulls Madge closer.

He owes it to Finnick to not waste his life with what could've beens.

It's a debt he'll never pay off, but he'll never stop trying.


	59. Photograph

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

Gale never had baby pictures.

Well, not that he knows of anyways. The first picture he remembers taking was in school, for his file. A file for the Capitol to use to keep track of him and everyone else in Panem.

At least that's what Uncle Levi had said.

"They're always watching us," he'd told Gale's dad over dinner. "Keeping notes on us."

"You don't think they have something better to do, Lee?" Gale's dad asked as he'd settled Vick on his knee, offered him a tesserae roll. "Our lives are pretty boring."

Uncle Levi had torn off a piece of rabbit with his teeth, waved the bone around and shook his head.

"I promise you, we aren't boring enough."

Gale had been afraid of going into the woods for weeks after that.

The fear had passed when his dad had pointed out that both he and Levi had been going into the woods for decades.

"You just have to be careful."

"But Uncle Levi says they're watching," Gale reminded him, eyeing the fence warily.

"They might be," he answered. "But Levi comes out here too. The risk of being caught isn't half as bad as you and your brothers starving for me."

Gale's stomach rumbled its agreement and the draw of freedom, fresh air, and fun that only the woods provided, overwhelmed his fear.

He'd worn a used blue uniform shirt his dad had bought at the Hob for the first of those pointless pictures.

It had been ripped in places, so his mom had patched it up, working her hands raw to make it presentable.

"You're too handsome, don't want a shirt to mess that up," she'd told him as she rocked Rory, ever the fussy baby.

The morning of the pictures his mom had scrubbed his face, washed his hair, combed it and smashed it down, until Gale had wiggled away.

"Mom," he'd grumbled.

She'd huffed. "If you'd comb your hair when I ask you, it wouldn't be such a mess now."

He'd smashed his hair down and glared in response.

There'd been a slate gray backdrop, he remembers that. Dull and cold, they'd sat a metal stool in front of it as each class up outside the door to the room and waited their turn.

The photographer had half-heartedly snapped the photos as the teacher pulled the kids from the line and told them to 'smile big for your parents'.

Gale had shot her a filthy look for that. His parents would never be able to afford those pictures, he was hungry, his shirt was itchy, and his hair looked funny. He had no reason to smile.

The next year was the same, and the next, and the next.

Same dim backdrop, same sour expression, same damn stool, same stupid photographer...the only things that changed were his clothes and his hair. More out of necessity than because he'd wanted to.

He'd seen Madge's pictures a few times when she'd been in the paper. She'd win a spelling bee or make the honor roll with a handful of other kids from Town and her name and that stupid school photo would appear on the news page the school pinned up on the bulletin board.

Guiltily, Gale remembers having made fun of her, more than once, for both her accomplishments and her picture. His stomach rolls when he imagines all the times he probably made her cry.

She'd always been in a clean school uniform. Not used or patched, pristine, and unlike Gale, she'd smiled.

It had annoyed Gale when he'd seen her, grinning for the camera on cue, like she was happy to have her picture taken. Never, not in his wildest dreams, would he have thought she was forcing it, pretending for the unseen eyes of the Capitol.

Gale's glare had been genuine. Madge's smile had been fake.

He hadn't noticed it at the time, but looking down at the box of half destroyed photos he's just been handed, with several pictures of his wife before she'd even been his friend, half-heartedly smiling up at him, he sees it now.

There was no light in her eyes, no joy. She was terrified, playing a part for an unseen audience.

"Where'd you find these?" He finally asks, after several long moments of staring at the battered box.

Beetee pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and smiles.

"Several underground safes were uncovered recently," he explains. "Snow apparently did keep all those paper documents he made the Districts file."

Many decades worth of paperwork was excavated recently, it appeared, and Beetee had just happened to be present during some of it.

"I tried to find people I knew," he tells Gale, as he glances forlornly at the box. "Johanna, Peeta, Katniss-"

"Let me guess, no dice?"

Gale can only imagine what Snow had done with those files.

Beetee's glasses slip again as he sighs. "No, I'm afraid not. None of the Victors' files were present."

For a moment he seems on the verge of saying something, maybe mention his family, all of which had died before the Quell, but he just shakes his head.

"Neither was your family's."

Gale snorts.

He was as much on Snow's radar as any Victor by the time of the Quell. His file, along with his every member of his family's, was probably on Snow's desk as the Capitol was taken down. If he had to guess, he'd say it and all the other files were tossed in Snow's personal fireplace the second he knew he was facing the end.

He'd wanted to erase those he hurt. If they died, all that would be left were memories, and those fade faster than the sun. If they'd lost, Snow would've removed them from history without much effort.

It had happened before, after all.

Madge's file, along with her parents' hadn't met the same fate. She and her parents managed to stay under the radar, just like they always had.

Setting the box down, Gale picks up one of the photos.

It's a family portrait, stilted and stiff, with the Mayor sitting next to Madge's mother on a blue velvet couch Gale recognizes as having sat in their home's front room.

Perched between them, in a pale yellow dress, is Madge.

She couldn't have been more than five or six, early in her dad's tenure as mayor. Her hair is carefully pulled into pigtails and her shoes are shiny and black. A perfect child for the Capitol's puppet family.

Despite her hair being soft blonde and her blue eyes, he can image Savanna standing in her place. Small and scared, unsure what's ahead, not knowing just how cruel people are going to be to her over something outside her control.

Letting the photo drop, Gale sighs.

The Mayor had been a good man. He'd done what he could for the people of Twelve, but he'd still been a tool of the Capitol. There's been no choice but to play the part the Capitol's man, and his playing his part well had probably saved the District from worse hardships.

The family photo seems more like a group mug shot with that in mind.

Under that he sees a marriage certificate, dated only a few months before the next paper, Madge's birth certificate. Gale laughs.

Beetee chuckles, takes his glasses off and cleans them on his shirt. "Ah, yes, Mrs. Undersee narrowly avoided an unwed mother's home it seems."

Tossing the papers back in the box, Gale shakes his head.

He's glad she did. He isn't sure he'd have made it this long if he didn't have Madge.

"Thanks, Beetee." Gale shuts the lid on the box and tucks it under his arm. "Thanks."

#######

The train ride back home, back to District Two, isn't long, but it's long enough.

Gale sit in his compartment with the box.

For a while he doesn't open it again, but that doesn't last long. There's something about the old relics he can't ignore or leave closed up.

He takes out papers and photos, examines them, then pulls out his billfold.

The first picture, tucked between cards and tickets, is of his family.

It's a few years old, Savanna's hair is still long in it, and Glen hadn't broken his nose yet.

He holds it up next to the photo of Madge's family, letting her be the constant.

Glen, despite being Gale in miniature, has his mother's smile, kind and gentle. Same sweetness in his eyes, he even has his hands held the same way she does.

Looking at Savanna, Gale chuckles.

Her smile is crooked, like his, but unlike the angry sneer he'd always worn, hers is bright. She's pure joy.

For a moment he wonders, if his life had been different, if he hadn't grown up too fast, half starved, always raging at something, if his smile might have been more like Savanna's.

Putting his family's picture away, he looks at the Undersees again before digging deeper in the box.

Madge's report cards, all excellent marks, a few copies of correspondence printed off between 'Mayor Daniel Undersee' and 'Commissioner Sorghum Mills', and more photos.

Sighing, Gale flips through the pictures.

Some of them are staged, like the family photo, stiff and unnatural.

The Mayor and Madge with Victors on their Tours, posing for the cameras.

He recognizes a few.

Johanna Mason, looking younger, a little more frightened, but still angry.

Finnick, mugging brilliantly for the camera. He almost looks truly happy.

Annie, small, wide eyed, terrified.

Even Alameda turns up, looking tiny but smug, green hair in ringlets.

The rest are lost on him. Fake smiles on faces he doesn't care about and has no memory of.

Then he reaches the last photo.

Mellark is grinning, playing the part of a happy Victor in love. Katniss' expression is closer to someone about to be violently ill.

No wonder Snow hadn't bought he lies and the propos in Thirteen had been such absolute failures.

Mellark would've been a better choice. He was an actor. Like Madge.

Shaking his head, he tosses the photos back in the box. He hasn't thought about Katniss or Mellark in years.

It's unfair. They've been tossed aside by the nation they'd given their lives, their families, their sanity for, and Gale is no better.

It's self-preservation that's kept them from his mind though.

Thinking about them only amplifies his failures, highlights how little he deserves the life he's gotten.

Closing the lid, he turns to the window, let's his head rest on the glass and watches the soggy forest slip by.

He'll be home soon.

#######

"I can't believe they found these after so long," Madge mutters, picking up each paper and phone carefully, inspecting the artifacts of a life lost long ago.

"Beetee says they find new stuff every day."

Most of it useless or uninteresting, but still valuable to someone. This was just their day.

"Snow hid stuff everywhere. All over the Capitol. Sometimes they demolish a place and find documents hidden in the rubble."

They've also found more than a few bodies, but he leaves that out. Little ears are listening.

"That's grandma?" Glen asks, eyeing a photo of Mrs. Undersee and Abernathy sitting at a table in what looks to be the old sweet shop. "She's pretty."

"You look like her momma," Savanna tells her, brushing some of her own hair from her eyes.

It's grown out some since she'd given herself an impromptu haircut a few months ago. It's almost past her chin.

"Yeah," Glen agrees. "You don't look much like your dad though."

He inspects one of the photos of the Mayor before setting it down and moving to the next paper.

"Look, it's your report card," he tells her as he begins to read off her grades.

Savanna frowns, stares at the box, then wrinkles her nose up and turns to Gale.

"Daddy, where's your pictures?"

Gale opens his mouth to tell her, as gently as he can manage, that what few pictures he had were destroyed years before she was even born, but Madge answers for him.

"Your dad's things we're all burned, baby. Remember? You learned about the bombing of Twelve in school for Independence Day."

Savanna's bottom lip puckers for a minute and she looks between Gale and Madge before flinging herself at Gale.

"I'm sorry, daddy. I forgot."

Gale pulls her into his lap and presses a kiss to her temple.

"It's okay, beautiful."

He's grateful she can forget. His demons aren't hers.

"Are you sad?" She asks, her dark head resting on his shoulder.

"No," he answers. It's the truth. There's nothing of his old life he'd trade what he has now for, and he certainly doesn't need ugly pictures to remind him of anything.

He made it out with his family, his mom, Posy, and his idiot brothers. Madge didn't. Pictures are all she'll ever have of her parents.

"Dad doesn't even like having his picture taken," Glen reminds her. "He always makes that face when the camera people take it, remember?"

Savanna nods, hops off Gale's lap and grins. "Yeah, like this."

Her little face pulls back in a grimace worse than the one Katniss was making in the photo now buried under the contents of the box.

"I don't do that," Gale defends himself.

Glen laughs. "No, it's more like this!"

He makes an even more pained expression.

Gale rolls his eyes.

"I don't-"

Madge cuts him off, "Gale...you do."

Huffing, Gale scoops up some of the papers from the box and begins flipping through them.

He stops when he sees his own face, smiling up at him.

Only it isn't him.

It takes a moment for him to recognize the man in the photo, he hasn't seen him in a lifetime, and it's startling to see him so suddenly.

His dad.

It's a group photo from the mines, some kind of ceremony, with the mayor and some other officials, which is why the photo was probably there in the first place.

Asher Hawthorne is at the far right, 'crew chief' embroidered on this chest, standing with several other chiefs and a few random miners beside some new mining equipment.

It's staged, clearly, if the tight smiles on most of their faces are any indication, the unnatural poses several are in, but it's real. His dad was there, alive, smiling.

With a start, Gale recognizes his Uncle Levi, looking unmistakably uncomfortable, next to his brother.

"Dad!" Glen shouts, holding up a photo. "You are in here!"

Not even setting down the photo of his dad, Gale looks at the one Glen thrusts in his face.

Sure enough, his surly expression is glaring back at him.

"The family portraits," Madge murmurs, reaching over and taking the picture, smiling fondly at the awful thing.

Gale groans, remembering Alameda having them take the stupid thing during her reign of terror during the Seventy-Fourth Games.

"And there's Uncle Rory, and Uncle Vick, and Tia Posy, and Grammy!" Savanna cheers, pointing to each person as she names them off.

While she pulls the picture closer and chatters about each person, Glen spots the picture in Gale's hand.

"Is that you too?" He asks, taking the photo and frowning at it.

Gale gently takes it back, smiles.

"No, that's my dad." He points to his dad, frozen in a smile, younger than Gale is now. "And that's my uncle, Levi."

Gale's family photo still in her hand, Savanna moves closer to Glen, stares at her grandpa and his brother.

"They're pretty," she finally announces. "Like me."

Glen rolls his eyes but doesn't say anything, just continues to rifle through the box and read Madge's report cards and the occasional correspondence from his grandpa.

Gale feels Madge scoot closer, rest her head on his shoulder.

She's still got her family portrait in her hand, staring at it for a few moments before looking up at Gale, eyes shining.

"Sometimes I think I'm forgetting what they looked like, how they sounded, the way they laughed or smiled...maybe I am." She presses her fingers to her left eye, wipes away a few escaping tears and nods to herself. "This is nice. This is good."

Gale picks the picture of the miners back up, stares down at his dad.

At a glance he could be Rory, the way his cap is pulled and crooked. The way he slouches could be Vick. His eyes are all Posy, his smile is Savanna, wild hair is Gale and Glen.

Gale couldn't forget him if he tried, he's everywhere.

Somehow, he kind of had though.

He isn't sure if it's his dad's voice he hears in his memories, or Rory and Vick's. It could be a stranger's. A lifetime has passed since he heard it last.

When he hears his dad talking to Levi in his head, maybe it's just his own brothers filling the space.

Madge takes his hand, squeezes it.

"We aren't," she tells him, as if reading his mind.

He frowns, pretends he doesn't know what she's talking about.

"Forgetting them," she clarifies. "Sometimes Glen will say something or 'Vanna will laugh, and...the memories are there, my parents are there. Clear as day."

Nodding, Gale smiles faintly at the photo in his hand.

"Yeah...I was thinking the same thing."

"We need'a-need some frames," Glen tells them, setting down the papers in his hands. "We need to put them up. With the rest of the family."

Smile widening, Gale chuckles.

"Yeah."

#######

They invite Gale's mother and siblings over the next evening.

"He looks like you," Posy finally tells Gale, after several long moments of staring at her father's picture. "Mom always said...I didn't know how much though."

Madge watches as Gale pulls her into a hug, kisses her hair.

Posy had never seen Asher Hawthorne. He'd been dead before she'd even taken her first breath.

Swatting at her eyes, Madge turns away.

Her memories might be fading, but Posy's are nonexistent.

Beside them, on the couch, Hazelle is sitting with Vick, Rory leaning over the back, all quietly discussing their family photo, now carefully framed and held in Hazelle's hands.

"Those shirts were itchy," Rory remembers, instinctively scratching his neck.

Vick chuckles. "She threatened to cut your hair."

Hazelle just nods, touches each forgotten reflection before taking the frame from Gale's hands.

"I remember the day they too this. I was still pregnant with Vick. Levi had me patch his shirt the night before."

They're all meaningless details, unconnected really, but they mean so much. Little memories mean so much more once they're gone.

The moment was real, even if the photo was staged.

Walking to the wall, Madge smiles at the picture of her and her parents.

She can't remember the day it was taken, she'd been smaller than Savanna, but she remembers so many of the others.

Fake smiles, stiff clothes, fear.

The picture in front of her though, feels less cold.

It may be wishful thinking, but she wants to pretend their smiles were real in it, they were happy. None of the awfulness of life had truly hit them yet. They didn't know how much they were losing, moving into the mayor's house.

Glen wraps his arms around her waist, tilts his head up and smiles at her.

"I love you."

Squeezing him back, Madge smiles down.

"I love you too."

Savanna wanders over, glances back at the couch and shakes her head.

"They're crying." She looks up at the wall, at the framed portraits now hanging there. "I think they're upset abou' Tia Posy's dress. It was hideous."

Madge doesn't even stop herself from laughing. Savanna has so much of her own mother in her sometimes.

"Your dress was ugly too, momma, is that why you're crying?"

Glen sighs.

"That's not why they're cryin','Vanna."

She makes a face, clearly disbelieving.

"Well they should be. They're ugly."

"They're cryin' 'cause they miss grampa. Mom's cryin' cause she misses grandpa and grandma," Glen explains, his expression somber.

Savanna stares up at the pictures for a moment longer before nodding. "Oh."

Reaching out, she grips Madge's skirt and falls into her, an awkward face forward hug.

"I'm sorry you're sad."

She looks genuinely sorry, even if she can't quite understand why everyone is upset

Neither she nor Glen have any real concept of loss. They've never had anyone die on them. Other than the animals Gale helps them hunt, they have no experience with death.

Madge hopes they don't get that painful lesson for a very long time.

"Thank you, sweetheart."

Something thunders in the distance outside and Glen's eyes light up.

"The fireworks!"

He doesn't even have to grab Savanna, she's already racing a few steps ahead of him, out the door and into the front yard.

For a moment Madge doesn't move, just watches them vanish oh the door and down the step. Through the window she sees their faces upturn, watch in wonder as color and light erupt overhead.

She feels Gale come up behind her, wraps his arms around her and pull her close.

"Happy Independence Day," he murmurs, lips to her ear, sending a shiver up her back.

They don't move, just watch Glen and Savanna playing under the fireworks, cheering with each explosion.

Vick comes up, places the photo with his dad and uncle on the wall, then the family portrait next to it, before smiling.

"We're going on the porch," he tells them, slouching down, shrugging.

He isn't a fan of the display, but then, none of them are.

Before the kids were born they'd avoided the yearly celebrations if they could. Occasionally Gale would have to make an appearance for official purposes, and Madge had accompanied him, but his family stayed in.

Posy has always gone to bed early, the noise and the light to reminiscent of the firebombing in a Twelve for her. She'd have nightmares for weeks afterward.

Hazelle stayed in, patching and cleaning, turning up the radio Gale had bought her to drown out the booming.

Rory and Vick often vanished deep into the woods of Two. They've never talked about what they spent their time doing, and Madge never asked.

They all had their rituals they kept to.

Until Glen was born.

Once he was old enough to tottle out, see the vivid explosions in the sky, hear the excitement swelling around him, he'd loved it.

There was no memory of death, nightmare images, homes burning to dust, in his mind.

Independence Day is simply fun for him. Its parties and food, glorified television specials, and fireworks.

His delight had slowly pulled his family out of the shadows of the celebrations. They'd never love it like he did, there was too much tied to it, but his simple childish joy was enough to wash some of the horror from it.

It was enough to see him happy. Their suffering had accomplished something.

When Savanna was born her brother had passed his love on.

Neither one of them feared the fire. It only held life for them, not the destruction it did for their parents.

Tugging Gale along, Madge steers him to the porch and onto the swing.

They watch Glen and Savanna cheering on the fireworks, doing cartwheels and somersaults under the night sky.

Closing her eyes, Madge remembers playing in her own front yard, being harassed, tears and fear.

She thinks of the pictures now hanging on her living room wall. Her a parents, Gale's dad, all dead too early, only living on in memories and stilted photos.

It's unfair, but it's in the past.

Opening her eyes, she smiles as Savanna grabs Glen's hands and makes him swing her around.

No.

Pictures and memories aren't all that's left of them, she thinks.

They're still with them, in actions and looks, smiles, jokes…

She hears Savanna laugh, remembers her silly smile in her first school photo.

She'd been happy, a little hammy, unafraid in that frozen moment.

There was no reflection of the faded little school photos Madge and Gale had taken, with their gray backdrop, dim lighting, and forced, very fake smiles. Savanna and Glen only ever look delighted in their photos.

Fake as they were, Madge thinks those old school photos showed reality a little more clearly than intended. Every bit of fear and worry showed through the set up.

Just like it's absent from all the ones her children have taken so far.

Smiling, she remembers the book sitting under the coffee table inside.

It's filled with pictures, as unstaged as they get.

Birthday parties, celebrations, lazy unimportant days...taken for reasons and no reason at all. Even as a child of privilege Madge hadn't had that luxury often. Her only 'candid' pictures were still few and far between, still taken by Capitol cameras for a reason.

It's nice that when they're older, Glen and Savanna will have little printed memories of their childhoods to brighten their memories when they begin to age and yellow at the edges. Not just of the big moments, but of the small ones too.

"I'm glad the kids like the fireworks," Gale murmurs in her ear, pulling her back to the moment, the laughter and cheering. "It makes-I mean-maybe it makes everything we've gone through worth it."

She nods.

Their children aren't afraid. Not of fire or people or life.

Even without photos, their childhood memories will be happy.

Fireworks will only ever be fireworks. They won't stir up nightmares with each explosion for them, like they do with the rest of the family.

Maybe someday, Madge will only hear laughter, not screams, when she hears the Independence Day celebrations.

Maybe her babies' joy will scrub out the sadness.

If it doesn't though, the simple fact that her demons, Gale's demons, won't follow them will be enough.

That will be worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: This is probably the last addition this collection will get. I've been trying to come up with a final chapter for a while, but it's been a long road. This just feels like the coda to all of this. Everything ends, right? Thanks to everyone who has been suffering through all this mess with me, thanks to everyone who encouraged me and reviewed, and thanks for the kindness. I hope you enjoyed at least parts of this journey and maybe had a few laughs, because I suffer from the delusion that I'm funny and imagining I've made some random stranger thousands of miles away giggle is sometimes the highlight of my day. Someday I might put up final installments of the hs and college au stories, but that'll be a long time coming. Anyways, thanks for reading y'all.

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Still moving stories over. May take a bit, but hopefully I’ll get it all done.


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